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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23496973">The Sellout</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemperIntrepida/pseuds/SemperIntrepida'>SemperIntrepida</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Assassin's Creed - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops &amp; Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Portland Oregon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:08:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,510</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23496973</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemperIntrepida/pseuds/SemperIntrepida</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kyra owns a coffee shop and Kassandra is a business executive on a project that puts them both on a collision course.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kassandra/Kyra (Assassin's Creed)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>187</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. the meet cruel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <strike>Honestly, this story is an excuse for me to write smut with these two set in a modern day time period. Suffice to say, this is <b>not</b> going to be a slowburn, and the pacing is going to be brisk from here on out. I want to write this smut almost as much as you want to read it. ;)</strike>
</p>
<p>This story appears to have turned into an accidental novel. MY BAD.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kyra had just started pulling a double shot when trouble swaggered through the door in the shape of a woman: tall, dark-haired trouble, broad-shouldered trouble, trouble wearing a business suit so perfectly tailored that Kyra could smell the money on her all the way from the other end of the bar.</p>
<p>The woman ambled up to the counter without so much as a glance at the menu board, instead letting her gaze sweep over the shop, from the regulars camped at the couches by the windows, to the empty tables in the center of the space, until her eyes finally came to rest upon Kyra herself.</p>
<p>Kyra put on a smile that was at least eighty percent fake and said, "I'll be right with you."</p>
<p>That made the woman nod, a measured movement not at all like the distracted nods most customers gave when told they'd have to wait, and something about it made prickles race across the back of Kyra's neck.</p>
<p>The shot was finished brewing, and Kyra cut the pull and returned her attention to the pitcher of steamed milk resting on the counter. She picked it up and gave it a gentle swirl, then took the cup with the shot from the drip tray and started pouring the milk into it. When the cup was nearly full, she began layering the foam so the ripples of white formed the body and upswept wings of a swan, finishing with a flourish that left a curving neck and the suggestion of a head and beak. There. A Leda in memory of love won and lost.</p>
<p>Kyra brought the cup to the register end of the bar, where she placed it on the pick-up counter and said in a loud voice, "Barney. Get your damn drink." It was three in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and the shop was empty except for the usual suspects — and the woman standing on the other side of the counter, who didn't seem the type to wilt before a curse word or two. A raised eyebrow and a quirk at the corner of her lips proved Kyra right.</p>
<p>Barney popped up from the couch with a grin. He liked it when Kyra played grumpy, and he practically danced up to the counter to claim his prize while the woman stepped aside to make room for him.</p>
<p>His eyes took in Kyra's creation, swan and all, and he placed his hand over his heart and said, "Kyra, you honor me," as he always did during his three o'clock moment of happiness. Their little ritual.</p>
<p>The woman watched their exchange with interest. Her stance was wide-legged and relaxed as she waited for Barney to shuffle away with his drink cradled in his hands. Then Kyra turned to her, and when their eyes finally met, another prickle swept across Kyra's neck and down her spine.</p>
<p>Hot. The woman was hot — and not just that but <em>gorgeous</em>, as trouble for Kyra always was. Her hair was tied up in a braid, and the muscled lines of her neck emerged from the crisp collar of her shirt to meet a strong jawline. Full lips. High cheekbones. And light brown eyes flecked with gold, piercing as a raptor's, studying Kyra in a very deliberate display of attention.</p>
<p>She was the kind of gorgeous that made Kyra do stupid things, and an irritated heat rose from Kyra's belly up through her chest, some of it slipping out her voice as she said, "What can I get started for you?"</p>
<p>"I'd love a latte as beautiful as that one," the woman said, her eyes flicking over to the couches, "but unfortunately I need mine to go."</p>
<p>A safe and timid choice, incongruent for someone who radiated confidence and power, but if Kyra had a dollar for every time she'd seen people make odd choices while standing under the hot, track-lit glare of her coffee shop's menu, she'd have enough money to stop worrying about making the rent. "What size?"</p>
<p>"Grande," the woman answered automatically, but then she seemed to catch herself and said, "No, wait. Make it a twelve ounce, please."</p>
<p>Kyra could have unpacked a lot from that collection of answers, but she didn't want trouble to linger in her thoughts any longer than necessary. At least the woman had said <em>please</em>. "That'll be three fifty."</p>
<p>The woman reached inside her jacket and pulled out her wallet, but it was less a wallet than a thin stack of credit cards sandwiched between two similarly-sized plates of metal, with a wad of cash clipped to it. She peeled off a bill and pushed it across the counter. Her nails were short and well-shaped. No wedding ring, but the crown of a watch, large and masculine, peeked out from the cuff of her suit jacket.</p>
<p>Kyra punched the order into the register and made change for the twenty, sliding the coins and bills back across the counter. "I'll have it ready shortly," she said, and she walked back up the bar, picking up a paper cup from the stacks along the way.</p>
<p>Kyra's beloved La Marzocco awaited, its polished stainless steel shining in the light, a marvel of coffee engineering. Three group heads, two steam wands, and enough room that she and Pete could work the morning rush without bumping elbows. The machine had cost her as much as a nice car. It also fed her and put a roof over her head. It was her baby, and working with it brought her joy with every pull.</p>
<p>She felt herself smiling as she twisted the portafilter from the head and knocked the spent coffee grounds into a bin. Then she measured out the beans and started the grinder, wiping the basket in the filter with the cloth that hung from her belt while the grinder whirred.</p>
<p>The woman was watching her, and the weight of that gaze bore down on her and made her shiver despite the warmth thrown off by the machine. She focused on the dose. On the tamp. Not too much force, not too light, the grounds smooth and even, waiting for the heat and moisture and pressure that would combine separate parts into one, delicious moment.</p>
<p>While the espresso shot was pulling, she poured milk into a clean pitcher, then purged the wand and dunked it inside the milk to steam, the pitcher's cold steel warming against her skin as the liquid swirled and foamed. And when it was too hot to touch, she set it on the counter so the foam could rest while she wiped down the wand and lost herself in the familiar motions of crafting a latte.</p>
<p>A minute later, Kyra set the cup in front of the woman, next to the pile of change that sat untouched where Kyra had left it. "Enjoy," she said.</p>
<p>The woman took a sip, and her eyes widened. Then she sipped again, and a slow smile spread across her lips. But instead of taking her drink and leaving, she looked at Kyra and asked, "How long has this place been here?"</p>
<p>"Ten years."</p>
<p>It was interesting, the way the woman's face told Kyra two different stories: her features were open and friendly, but her eyes held calculated intent. "And how's business these days?"</p>
<p>Wariness uncoiled itself from its slumber around Kyra's belly and lifted its head. "Better than it looks at the moment."</p>
<p>"You're a bit far from MLK."</p>
<p>"MLK" was Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and like every MLK in a big city in the US, the name had been bestowed on a street in what had once been an industrial wasteland fifty years ago but was now a busy thoroughfare today. When Kyra first signed the lease for this shop, there was only one brewpub in the neighborhood, and her neighbors were a vacuum wholesaler and a logging equipment distributor. Ten years later, there were seven brewpubs within walking distance and nearly as many distilleries. "This isn't a Starbucks drive-through. Distillery Row brings in a lot of folks on tasting tours. So do all the brewpubs, and there's a streetcar line just up the way. But what would a barista know about foot traffic metrics or exposure value, right? Your eyebrows are already sky-high."</p>
<p>The woman smiled and matched her gaze. "All right. Let's talk about exposure value. What's the premium in cost per square foot for a high visibility retail space in this neighborhood?"</p>
<p>Kyra lifted her chin. "Does that work on everyone?"</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"The eye contact. The smile."</p>
<p>The smile in question widened a fraction. "And just what do you think I'm trying to do?"</p>
<p>"You're bullshitting me. And I don't know why."</p>
<p>"I'm new in town and I'm curious about this area. And who better to ask than the person who delivers the daily caffeine fix to everyone in the neighborhood. I didn't expect to get my head bitten off." Oh, she was <em>good</em>, how her voice had slipped into a hurt pout at the end. But her eyes gave her away, the hard glint within them almost predatory.</p>
<p>"Are you going to ask to see my manager?"</p>
<p>"Should I?"</p>
<p>"It won't get you very far."</p>
<p>Realization dawned. "You <em>are</em> the manager."</p>
<p>"Think bigger, lamb. I know I don't look like much." With her flannel shirt and black skinny jeans cuffed above a pair of Docs, Kyra knew she looked like every barista in Portland.</p>
<p>The woman took a breath as if she were tasting it, then she grinned and said, "You own this shop."</p>
<p>"Now you're catching on."</p>
<p>"Is this how you treat all your customers?"</p>
<p>"No, just the ones who come in under false pretenses." The words hung in the air between them, and Kyra crossed her arms. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"</p>
<p>"You haven't helped me at all, but the drink was delicious."</p>
<p>"If you're still sore about it after you get back to your Mercedes, you can put that down as your one star review on Yelp."</p>
<p>The woman laughed and raised her cup in a mock toast. "Well, this has certainly been exciting," she said, heading for the door. "I can't wait to see what happens the next time I come in."</p>
<p>"Next time? I'll be surprised if I see you again," Kyra said, but as she eyed the pile of change sitting untouched on the counter, her gut told her she'd better start preparing for trouble to return.</p>
<p>"Is that wishful thinking I hear?" The woman looked back with a smirk as she reached for the door. "Oh, you'll be seeing a lot more of me, I promise," she said. Then she winked at Kyra and left the shop.</p>
<p>Kyra rolled her eyes and tossed the money into the tip jar.</p>
<p>A whistle pierced the air, then Ellen's voice piped up from the couches. "Who the fuck was <em>that</em>?"</p>
<p>"Someone who just paid twenty bucks for a latte."</p>
<p>"Ooh, Kyra's lucky day. And even after you were such a bitch to her."</p>
<p>"That woman is bad news."</p>
<p>"You say that about every beautiful woman who walks in here."</p>
<p>"This time I'm worried about business, not pleasure." She'd never be able to explain the wariness she'd felt the moment the woman had started asking questions. Kyra had learned long ago to listen to that feeling whenever it stirred.</p>
<p>"That wasn't just a business transaction. She was into <em>you</em>."</p>
<p>"No she wasn't. She came in here looking for something, and that something wasn't me or a drink."</p>
<p>"You're so fucking paranoid sometimes."</p>
<p>One person's paranoia was another person's survival skill. Kyra had spent a childhood predicting the liquor-fueled winds of her father's rage, and that had made a home for wariness to live within her gut, along with host of other tools she used to discern a person's intent, to read the signals they gave off before they acted.</p>
<p>Her father was long dead, but his legacy lived on. These days, she used it to give customers what they wanted when they had no idea what that was. But it also helped her read certain situations, like whenever someone tried to pitch her a new business opportunity, or whenever a man entered the shop in the empty minutes just before closing.</p>
<p>"Ellen, leave her be," Harold said gently. He was the third of Kyra's trio of regulars, a retired history professor who fancied himself a sage. "Kyra has much to do, and I doubt she wants to spend it worrying about the unknowns on the horizon."</p>
<p>He was right, though. Kyra didn't want to think about trouble or her questions, or the fact that her hand-tailored suit probably cost more than the shop's rent each month.</p>
<p>Kyra reached down for the rag she used to clean the countertops, and shivered.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. the big reveal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kassandra sipped her coffee and surveyed the Portland skyline: the muddy river far below, Mount Hood backlit by sunrise skies as soft and pink as a kitten's tongue, and the laughably light traffic skating along I5. Roofs and trees, then trees in greater and greater numbers until they made a velvety green carpet all the way to the mountains. Portland had to be the smallest big city she'd ever lived in.</p><p>She sipped again, letting the coffee's warmth ward off the chill from the polished concrete floor beneath her feet, and she wandered away from the unbroken expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows that formed the eastern wall of her condo, back to the table where her laptop waited for her to put the finishing touches on the Yelp review she'd been dying to write since yesterday afternoon.</p><p>After visiting fifty — no, closer to a hundred — coffee shops in the month she'd lived here so far, she'd never experienced one quite like Cliffhanger Coffee. The latte she'd ordered was damn near perfect, but the coffee snob capital of the US was full of near-perfect lattes. It <em>wasn't</em> full of beautiful, dark-haired women with fire in their eyes who could pull espresso shots while throwing volleys of sharp, sharp words at the first sign of a threat.</p><p>Despite turning up the dials on her charm and attentiveness, Kassandra had gotten skewered almost as soon as she'd opened her mouth. After two years of living with Pacific Northwest passive aggressiveness, the woman's flat-out, in-your-face aggressiveness had hit Kassandra like the first taste of a sea breeze after years in the desert.</p><p>She'd savored every sip of that latte while walking up Belmont back to her car, and later on, she'd fallen asleep thinking about the woman's sharp words, the muscled lines of her forearms, and how they'd disappeared into blackwork tattoos that ran under the rolled-up sleeves of her flannel shirt. Trees on one arm and plants on the other, ferns giving way to some kind of vine, twisting in intricate lines on her skin...</p><p>Kassandra shook the thought away and focused on the text she'd written. <em>Come for the delicious drinks, stay if the barista likes you...</em> She tapped a finger against her chin in thought, then typed out one final sentence before she clicked "Post Review."</p><p>
  
</p><p>She examined her handiwork with a satisfied grin, then finished off the last of her coffee. Maybe she could squeeze in a visit to the other side of the river after her one o'clock planning meeting downtown. She picked up her phone.</p><p>Dessa answered in the middle of the first ring. "Good morning, Kassandra." She'd been Kassandra's assistant long enough to know her working hours went from seven a.m. to seven p.m. and often beyond.</p><p>"Dessa. Good morning. How's my two to four looking this afternoon?"</p><p>Quiet click-clicks as Dessa brought up her calendar. "You've got a one-on-one with Trevor Adams from two-thirty to three-thirty."</p><p>"Reschedule him to early next week."</p><p>"Consider it done."</p><p>"Any messages for me?"</p><p>"Kevin would like you to call, but he says it's not urgent."</p><p>Kassandra snorted. A CEO's <em>not urgent</em> merely meant <em>right now</em> instead of <em>yesterday</em>. "Coordinate a call with Lisa so I can talk to him at his earliest convenience." Lisa, his long-suffering admin assistant, who'd followed him from Microsoft to Juniper and every other stop along the way.</p><p>"It'll probably be around eight-thirty."</p><p>"That works." She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. "How're things back at the ranch?"</p><p>A sigh. "Markos has been looking for you."</p><p>Kassandra rolled her eyes. "He can make a calendar request like everyone else."</p><p>"I told him that, but you know how he is."</p><p>She did, all too well. He liked his meetings with her to be in person and off the record, like he was some big-shot politician instead of a middling marketing executive. "I'll be on site tomorrow morning. If he weasels by again, tell him he can buy me lunch."</p><p>"Will do. Anything else you need?"</p><p>"That's it for now. Thanks, Dessa."</p><p>She gave one last smirking glance at Yelp, then closed the browser tab and pulled up Outlook. The number of messages in her inbox had reached quadruple digits, and she made a mental note to spend some time cleaning it up later. She scrolled around until she found the email she wanted, then picked up her phone again. "Hi, Evelyn. It's Kassandra. Ready to start crunching those square footage numbers on the southeast flagship?"</p><p>.oOo.</p><p>A little after two o'clock, Kassandra turned her Audi R8 onto the looping ramp that led up to the Morrison Bridge, and just past the apex of the curve, she punched the gas and grinned as the big V10 began to howl. The acceleration shoved her hard into her seat, and it was like sitting in a recliner strapped to a rocket, more than making up for the fact that the car only came with an automatic transmission. No matter. If she wanted to shift gears herself, she had motorcycles for that.</p><p>She found a place to park on a side street off Belmont, slung her laptop bag over her shoulder, then backtracked a couple of blocks to the building that housed Cliffanger Coffee. The neighborhood wore its light industrial roots proudly: lots of brick and corrugated metal, and the coffeeshop's building was no exception. The ground floor units had lofted ceilings, but there were two more floors above them that looked like they'd been converted into apartments sometime in the last forty years. Likely rent controlled. Probably what had kept the owner from tearing it all down and putting up a mixed use development in its place.</p><p>A development on a street corner like this could net tens of millions.</p><p>The corner unit was occupied by a store selling overpriced furniture, and she scanned the price tags through the windows as she passed: five-hundred-dollar end tables and six-thousand-dollar couches. The store had probably been open for less than a year. She wondered what had been in its place a decade ago, when the coffee shop next door had moved in and nudged this neighborhood a little further down the path of gentrification.</p><p>A slate-colored sign bearing the words "Cliffhanger Coffee" hung over the door, the bold white lettering in a font that was clean and timeless rather than trendy, set over an angular slash that was more suggestive of a cliff than explicit.</p><p>Kassandra pushed the door open and stepped inside. Busier today, with customers dotting the interior tables, and the same three people from yesterday seated at the couches, deep in conversation. The woman — the <em>owner</em>, Kassandra reminded herself — was at the register, smiling as she handed a cup to a customer. At the sound of the door opening, her gaze slid from the man, to Kassandra, then back again.</p><p>The woman's smile faded as soon as the customer turned his back to her. She wore a blue and white plaid button-down with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and tight black jeans. The buckle of her belt glinted silver under the menu board's lights. "What do you want?" she asked as Kassandra walked up to the counter, her gaze as opaque as smoked glass, and Kassandra knew she wasn't really asking about a drink.</p><p>"I'll take a double shot, bone dry cappuccino, please."</p><p>The woman's eyes narrowed a fraction as Kassandra's weaponized order hit its mark. "Four dollars and thirty cents," she said flatly, slamming her fingertip into the register's touchscreen so hard its plastic casing creaked. This time, Kassandra took a good look at the woman's hands: long and slender, implying fine bones within, but her fingers were wrapped with muscles, as were her wrists and forearms, powerful lines disappearing into black foliage and vines that climbed up her arm.</p><p>That kind of muscle didn't come from pulling shots at an espresso machine — it came from training and effort. Kassandra knew it well; she wore it herself from her neck to her calves, earned it in the weight room and on the pitch, and, once everyone figured out she'd grow up to be tall instead of fast, on the basketball court. The woman had probably started young at whatever sport it was, but she was too tall and lean to be a gymnast, and no soccer player who wasn't a goalkeeper had wrists like that, and she wasn't tall enough to be a keeper anyway...</p><p>Kassandra realized she was staring, and her fingers fumbled at her wallet inside her suit jacket's pocket. It took her two tries to pull a twenty from the cash in her money clip, and she made herself take a slow breath before she pushed it across the counter. "Can you make that drink for here, please?" she asked once she'd regained her poise.</p><p>The woman tilted her head and eyed the twenty. Her look could have shattered concrete. Then the twenty disappeared into the cash drawer and a stack of coins and bills took its place. "You might as well have a seat," she said, tossing the words over her shoulder as she moved to the espresso machine.</p><p>And just like the day before, the woman's shroud of irritation fell away as soon as she focused her full attention on making the drink, her eyes lighting up with a clean, unburdened joy. This woman was the one Kassandra wanted to talk to. She wanted to ask, <em>Does it feel the same way for you too?</em> It was beating everyone in the paint to a rebound, or hitting a holeshot on the racetrack, that flowing perfection where everything is <em>just so</em> and all is right in the world. Kassandra had spent a lifetime chasing it.</p><p>One espresso shot and two full pitchers of steamed milkfoam later, the drink slid across the counter. "Bone dry," the woman said in a voice to match.</p><p>Kassandra picked up the cup, murmuring her thanks before she drifted around the perimeter of the shop. Lots of brick and exposed metal, softened by green plants. Real ones. This place would Instagram well. She sipped the drink, the hot espresso tunneling through a thick layer of fluffy foam, completely free of milk and its diluting effects. Yesterday's latte had been near-perfect, but this drink was perfection in every way, its components correctly proportioned, the shot ecstatically good. She needed to find out who the woman's coffee roaster was.</p><p>A set of shelves crammed with books occupied much of the back wall, under a small, hand-lettered sign reading <em>take one, leave one</em>. Past the shelves, a bulletin board hung over a small self-service bar that held carafes of cream and a variety of sweeteners. Kassandra's eye lingered on a line of brightly colored stickers running along the edge of the board: <em>Best of Portland 2010</em>, <em>Best of Portland 2011</em>, 2012, 2013... all the way to last year, 2017.</p><p>She chose a table against the wall that was mostly hidden from the counter's line of sight, pulled her laptop from her bag, sat down, and pretended to get to work.</p><p>A steady stream of customers passed through the doors of the shop, despite the doldrums of the mid-afternoon, and the thread of tension wound tight around the woman's voice began to loosen as she filled orders and chatted with customers. Once, she even laughed, low and round and rich, the sound fuming in the air like a good bourbon. Until that moment, Kassandra wasn't sure the woman was capable of it.</p><p>The shop began to empty out as the clock swept past three. Kassandra packed her laptop away and carefully set the empty cup into the bus tub under the self-service bar. She strolled over to the counter, ignoring the hostile glances from the regulars at the couches. There was a jar full of business cards next to the register she hadn't noticed before. <em>Enter to win a ten-pack of drinks</em> written in strong, angular lettering.</p><p>The woman turned to her and crossed her arms.</p><p>"The drink was perfect," Kassandra said.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>"I didn't catch your name."</p><p>"I didn't give it to you."</p><p><em>Not this way,</em> Kassandra wanted to say. <em>Let's not do it like this. Let's just talk. Tell me about your coffee: who grew it, where it came from, and what drew you to doing this?</em> Because she wanted to see that bright joy return to the woman's eyes instead of the anger living there now. "You don't like me at all, do you?"</p><p>"Have you given me a reason to like you?"</p><p>"Have I given you a reason <em>not</em> to?" Her brows knit with real confusion. "If I've caused any offense, I'm sorry."</p><p>"You seem to think that I have to give you the time of day because you're dropping twenties on drinks."</p><p>That stung. "Consider it compensation for wasting your precious time, then." She had tried to be nice from several angles, but had bounced off the mirror finish of the woman's anger every time. Nice didn't work on everyone. She'd keep her interest professional then, and run a different play from the playbook. "I guess you really wanted that fifth star," she said, and then she reached into her laptop bag and fished out one of her business cards, and she smirked as she caught a glimpse of a siren's enigmatic smile looking out from a familiar green circle. She locked eyes with the woman and threw the card into the jar by the till. "See you later."</p><p>As she walked out the door and onto the sidewalk, she couldn't help but grin. She would have loved to see the woman's face as she read the words on the card:</p><p><em>Kassandra Agiadis</em><br/>
<em>Vice President of International Real Estate Development</em><br/>
<em>Starbucks Coffee Company</em></p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Shoutout to fishbone76 for coming up with the perfect surname for Kassandra, and letting me borrow it in this story. Thank you!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. the bad news</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"So are you going to look at it, or what?"</p><p>Ellen was talking, from her favorite seat on the couch with the best view of the register, but Kyra just stared at the jar on the counter, at the card lying face down and innocent on top of all the other cards inside it. She knew damn well what company that card came from — she'd seen the flash of green as it spun in the air from being dunked into the jar with savage glee.</p><p>Starbucks green.</p><p>"Kyra?" Ellen's voice was closer now. Right at the counter.</p><p>Kyra wordlessly pushed the jar in her direction, and Ellen pulled up a sleeve and stuck her hand in, her head tilting into a question. <em>Is this it?</em></p><p>Kyra nodded.</p><p>Ellen fished the card out of the jar, her eyes widening as she read it. "Mother<em>fucker</em>," she said. "You were right — she <em>is</em> bad news."</p><p>"Show me." Kyra held out her hand.</p><p>The card landed in her palm, and as she flipped it over, her fingertips slid across bumps embossed onto its surface. Braille. On a business card. There was nothing a billion dollar company wouldn't do to give itself the tiniest edge over the competition.</p><p>The Starbucks logo greeted her on the front of the card. No surprise there. She scanned the text, eyes glancing over the woman's name — <em>Kassandra Agiadis</em> — but her name was less important to Kyra than her title: <em>Vice President of International Real Estate Development</em>.</p><p>The words on the card began to smear, and it was like falling while roped in during a climb; that sudden, twisting spin before the world dropped out from under her.</p><p>Real estate development. <em>What's the premium for a high visibility retail space in this neighborhood?</em></p><p>She considered the card in her hand — amazing how something so weightless could be so crushing — then tore it in half, flinging the pieces onto the counter hard enough for them to fly off the edge on the other side.</p><p>Ellen's head swiveled to follow their flight path, and then she silently walked past the counter and stooped to pick the pieces up from the floor.</p><p>Kyra knew this day would come, but like all disasters, it had sat off in the distance until the moment it showed up on her doorstep. For years, Starbucks had been content to keep mostly to the west side of the river, with seventeen stores crammed between I-405 and the waterfront.</p><p>Seventeen stores. Down in the Pearl District, there was a Starbucks on every fucking corner, choking out all but a handful of indie shops. But the river had made a good moat, and with Starbucks contained, she'd been able to make a decent living within the rougher, more corrugated edges of the Central Eastside and Distillery Row.</p><p>She'd survived Dutch Bros putting in drive-throughs north and south of her on MLK, the coffee shortage of 2011 that tripled the price of beans, and the slow sprouting of competing coffee shops across the neighborhood. She'd managed to stay on the right side of the profitability line, but she'd been clinging to survival by the smallest of handholds for months now. One slip would be enough to send everything plummeting to earth.</p><p>She should have taken Thal's money and opened up more shops. She should have sold to Stumptown when she had the chance. She should have—</p><p>Her eyes began to sting. She resisted the urge to flee to the storeroom; if she went back there and let the tears leak out, she wouldn't be able to stop them again. And running off wasn't an option even if she wanted to — she was the only one working this shift and someone had to watch the fort.</p><p>She breathed in slowly, breathed out, until the prickle in her eyes faded enough for her to push the retail mask back into place.</p><p>Ellen was still standing there, watching her. "You'll figure something out, Kyra. You always do," she said, placing the torn halves of the card on the counter. "Hang on to this shit, huh? Just in case."</p><p>Ellen made it halfway back to the couch when Kyra spoke up again. "Do you have your laptop with you?"</p><p>"How else would I abuse your wifi?"</p><p>"Can I borrow it for a few minutes?"</p><p>Ellen's grin was feral. "I thought you'd never ask."</p><p>.oOo.</p><p>It took a while to get the laptop sorted, much of it involving frantic clicking and password after password as Ellen rambled something about needing a VPN and not trusting the government, but eventually Kyra found herself looking at an empty browser window with a cursor blinking lazily in its address bar.</p><p>"Where are we stalking first?" Ellen asked, rubbing her palms together in anticipation.</p><p>Kyra pulled up LinkedIn and typed "Kassandra Agiadis" into the search field, and when the results appeared, the photo at the top of the list smiled a familiar smile, the woman's confidence captured in pixel form along with that sharp glint in her eyes.</p><p>Kyra opened the profile.</p><p>
  <em>Executive leader and consummate strategist with a proven record of results in aligning real estate acquisitions and portfolios with business goals...</em>
</p><p>She skimmed the suit-speak until she reached the background part of the profile.</p><p><em>MBA, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology</em><br/>
<em>BS, Economics, Stanford University</em></p><p>A lengthy list of job titles followed. Kassandra had only been at Starbucks a little more than a year. Before that, stints at Apple, Chipotle, CVS. The list went on. She'd rarely stayed longer than three years in a position.</p><p>Ellen whistled. "That's a lot of different companies."</p><p>"She's a mercenary," Kyra said. "Hired to do something specific and then move on."</p><p>Kyra opened another tab and searched Instagram, finding the woman's profile easily enough. The grid of photos featured a lot of concrete and metal, clean lines and minimalism, more Dieter Rams and Mid-Century Modern than any ostentatious displays of money being tossed around. Kyra kept scrolling. Except for the cars. And motorcycles. Apparently Kassandra liked her cars fast and her motorcycles retro.</p><p>"It's all very sterile, don't you think?" Kyra said, tapping a finger against her lips.</p><p>"I'll say. It's fucking fake. No one lives like that."</p><p>"I'm not sure all of it's fake, but it's definitely curated." She wiggled the cursor over a photo of the interior of a cabin, blonde wood and floor-to-ceiling windows framing a view of a lake. "She's paying someone to manage this for her."</p><p>"What's the fucking point of that?"</p><p>"Maintaining an image. Projecting a sense of old money." But something didn't add up, and Kyra couldn't pin down what it was.</p><p>She opened a third tab, this time for a good ol' Google search, and skimmed the list of results. A press release announcing Kassandra's hiring at Starbucks. More press releases. Talks at various conferences. Nothing particularly revelatory in the first few pages, but then a headline caught Kyra's eye and she clicked through.</p><p>
  <em>Agiadis leads Stanford to national championship win</em>
</p><p>
  <em>NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Led by a scintillating performance from Kassandra Agiadis, Stanford won its second consecutive national championship in a come-from-behind victory over rival Tennessee on Monday night.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Agiadis scored 24 points, muscled her way to 12 rebounds, and was two assists away from a triple-double as she powered Stanford to a 76-72 win, including sinking three crucial free throws in the final 34 seconds, in a game where Stanford found themselves in an early 12-4 deficit at the end of the first quarter.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"She wants to win more than anything, and she showed that tonight," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said of Agiadis. "We were in a hole after that first quarter, but Kassandra lifted this team up and said, 'Whatever it takes.' She simply refused to lose."</em>
</p><p>The article was old, and the photos accompanying the text were small, but unmistakably <em>her</em>: Kassandra, basketball in hand, pushing past two orange-clad players under the hoop. There was plenty of broad-shouldered muscle in that white Stanford jersey, but it was Kassandra's eyes, bright and clear with relentless focus, that caught Kyra's attention.</p><p>Ellen snorted from over Kyra's shoulder. "So she's a fucking jock. Why am I not surprised?"</p><p>Kyra didn't respond, too distracted by the second photo, which showed Kassandra surrounded by her teammates in a storm of confetti as she held an enormous trophy over her head in triumph, her smile as radiant as the sun.</p><p>And now she wore a suit instead of a basketball jersey and cut real estate deals for fun and profit. Seemed she was good at it too, but did it ever make her smile like she had while holding that trophy?</p><p>Kyra hoped the answer to that question was <em>no</em>.</p><p>.oOo.</p><p>She drifted through Wednesday and Thursday, irritable by day and sleepless at night, and when Friday evening arrived with its expanse of free time, she made three attempts to dig into Green's translation of the poetry of Catullus before setting the book aside and walking out to the shed in her back garden where she'd built her bouldering wall.</p><p>The faint scent of sweat, chalk, and dusty earth greeted her inside. It was her sanctuary, her shrine to defying gravity. Every handhold was as familiar as a lover.</p><p>But tonight she couldn't even climb the simplest problems. Her toes kept slipping and her fingers faltered.</p><p>She'd lost her grip.</p><p>Eventually she gave up and lay on her back on the crash pad, staring at the curving shadows the holds cast upon the wall, thinking of how problems she'd solved a thousand times could suddenly become so impossible.</p><p>.oOo.</p><p>Five minutes before closing on Saturday night, Kyra was wiping down the fridge under the counter when the door opened and a presence entered the shop. Maybe it was the way her visitor displaced the air in the otherwise empty room, or the sound of heavy footsteps, but Kyra knew exactly who she'd find when she stood up again.</p><p>Kassandra was standing next to the table closest to the register. This time, she wasn't wearing a suit — just an untucked linen shirt over tailored slacks — and she'd pulled her hair up into a loose chignon. The effect was to make her seem casual and relaxed, but no less moneyed.</p><p>Kyra wiped her hands on a clean rag to keep her eyes off the intersecting curves of Kassandra's jawline and neck. "Are you going to ask me to make you another fucking cappuccino? Because if so, I'm closed."</p><p>That drew a short laugh from Kassandra. "No. As much as I loved the one you made for me, even I'm not evil enough to ask for another this late."</p><p>"Then why are you here? So you can gloat before you put me out of business?"</p><p>"I don't want to put you out of business." Kassandra pulled a chair out from the table and made herself right at home, stretching her legs out before her. "I <em>want</em> your business."</p><p>Kyra's eyebrows lifted.</p><p>"I'll buy this," Kassandra said, as easily as if she was ordering a drink. She gestured around the room. "All of it. Right now."</p><p>"You can't be serious."</p><p>"I'm very serious. How much would it take to get you to say yes?"</p><p>Kyra walked out from behind the counter to the narrow wooden bar that ran along the windows, and began flipping stools over on top of it. "Never mind buying me out — why are <em>you</em> here? Don't you have some lackey to work deals like this for you?"</p><p>Kassandra shrugged. "I like your coffee."</p><p>"Enough to buy my shop." She tugged the pull cord on the OPEN sign to turn it off.</p><p>"It beats the alternative."</p><p>Kyra skirted around Kassandra's outstretched legs on her way past, and when she reached the counter, she leaned back against it and crossed her arms. "And that would be..."</p><p>"We put in a new flagship store down the street from you on MLK — and you take your chances."</p><p>Ten years ago, Kyra would have been thrilled at the news that Starbucks was opening a store nearby. In those heady days, Starbucks was a tide that lifted every coffee shop around it. It was Starbucks that taught the average American that there was better coffee out there than freeze-dried instant — and that it was worth paying more than fifty cents a cup for. The spillover in foot traffic from a nearby Starbucks could launch a shop's profits to stratospheric heights.</p><p>Those days were long gone. Coffee had become cutthroat and commoditized, and now people bitched that her lattes cost a nickle more than the ones they could get at Starbucks. Sure, there were people out there who cared that her coffee was sourced from a roaster who paid a fair price for beans from small, family-run farms, but there weren't enough customers like them to keep her lights on and her espresso machine humming. So she kept trimming her margins, trying to stay competitive on price while offering better product, knowing it was unsustainable in the long run.</p><p>Kassandra's offer was tempting. She could take the money, take a real vacation for the first time in years, make the funds last long enough to find a job, somewhere. Fuck, she could go and work for Thal at his chain of shops over in Bend. She'd probably make more money with a lot less stress, and she'd even have time to climb—</p><p>The sound of the door opening again brought her back to reality. A man stumbled into the shop, disheveled and dirty, wearing an oversized puffy coat and a shredded pair of work pants. He shuffled closer, stopping a few steps away from Kassandra. His body swayed with the restless twitching of an addict, too far gone to know where he was, much less care about sweltering in a heavy winter coat during a spring heatwave.</p><p>Trouble piling on.</p><p>"I'm sorry sir, we're closed," Kyra said as neutrally as she could, threading the line between being welcoming and unwelcoming.</p><p>His eyes darted to and fro, unfocused, and he kept shifting his weight from foot to foot while he gestured aimlessly around him.</p><p>Kassandra eased herself to her feet. "Hey man, what do you need?" she asked, her voice taking on that even, reasonable tone that most people used when talking to the unhinged.</p><p>"Got any spare change?" He was shaking now, deep in his need for another hit.</p><p>Kassandra slowly lifted her hands. "Sorry, I'm all out," she said. Then she nodded back towards Kyra. "She's all out too."</p><p>Kyra shook her head apologetically.</p><p>Her movement caught his attention, and he peered at her with manic eyes. "What you doing here? Huh? <em>Huh?</em>" He reached up and pulled angrily at the hair above his ears. "My house. <em>Mine.</em>"</p><p>"Nah," Kassandra said. "You're all turned around. Your house is out that way." She motioned towards the door.</p><p>He didn't seem to hear her, his eyes hardening to glare at Kyra as his face twisted. "You!" he shouted, and then the moment crystallized into a series of quick-cut images, unfurling into a jerky slideshow: the man lunging towards her, Kassandra sliding in between to intercept him, Kyra dodging out of the way as he slammed into Kassandra, knocking her off her feet...</p><p>Kyra could only watch helplessly as it put Kassandra's head on a collision course with the display case on the counter.</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I've taken some liberties with NCAA women's basketball history here. Apologies to UConn fans — I've borrowed a couple of your titles and given them to Stanford. Creative license, eh?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. the first thaw</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This was a mistake.</p><p>Kassandra only had time for that one, brief regret as she toppled backwards into the display case. A bang clapped through her skull and left her ears ringing, and a manic grin loomed before her as the world desaturated to grey, then black... and then her vision returned in a shock of light and color as crisp as sunshine on fresh snow. Then time slowed down, down, down and she stopped thinking and started moving: finding her feet, grabbing fistfuls of the man's coat, and launching herself forward. She pushed him along, gathering speed as she angled him towards the windows, and then she threw him into the wooden bar hard enough to send the stools on top of it flying.</p><p>He bounced off the edge of the bar and landed on the floor in a sprawl, and as she sank to her knees, she heard the slap of his shoes against wood, then the door opening and closing, and then silence.</p><p>Every straight line in the room curved in on itself, and she pressed her palm into the floor to keep from falling over. Her chest was a furnace, each hot breath harsh in her ears, and she knelt there, staring at a knot in the floorboards, fascinated by the way it punctured the woodgrain around it.</p><p>Footsteps approached her in a hurry, then a voice, thin and tight, said, "Are you— Hang on, okay?"</p><p>Kassandra studied the cracks radiating out from the center of the knot. A weakness in the grain. Stupid. She'd thrown herself in harm's way for a woman who hated her. Why? She didn't even know the woman's name. So stupid.</p><p>She heard metal jangling against metal at the door. Then the footsteps returned, and the woman knelt beside her, a phone in her hand, its screen bright enough to sear a halo into the edges of Kassandra's vision.</p><p>"I'm calling 911—"</p><p>Kassandra put her hand over the screen, and as their skin touched, the woman jerked her hand and the phone away as if scalded. Kassandra sighed. "Don't."</p><p>"Don't what? Call?"</p><p>"He's long gone. The cops'll never find him, and they'll bring you more trouble than it's worth." And more trouble than Kassandra wanted to deal with to keep her name out of the newspapers and off of Twitter.</p><p>"Fine. No cops. But you should still go to the ER."</p><p>Her head ached too much to shake it. "No. I hate hospitals."</p><p>"Everyone hates hospitals."</p><p>"No ambulance."</p><p>The woman exhaled, sharp and quick. "Then what do you want to do?"</p><p>"Call an Uber, and go home." Despite her aching head and stiff neck, the burn in her lungs was fading, and the lines of the floorboards, and chair legs, and table tops were straightening back to true.</p><p>"That's a terrible plan."</p><p>Kassandra shrugged, and then she started to climb to her feet. She got as far as raising herself on one knee before her body refused to move any further. She swayed precariously. The floor seemed a long way down, and she imagined how it was going to feel when she smacked face-first into it — but hands grabbed her by her shoulders and held her upright. So much strength in those hands, but not an ounce of warmth.</p><p>"Sit here and don't move," the woman said, guiding Kassandra down so she rested with her back against the window. "I'm calling an ambulance."</p><p>Desperation drove Kassandra to catch her by the arm. "Don't. Please," she said, and the light in the room chilled from warm yellow to cold fluorescence, and instead of coffee she smelled disinfectant. She shuddered with the memory of medication and pain and being trapped in beds in white rooms, and it set off a fresh round of ringing in her ears.</p><p>The woman stared at Kassandra's hand wrapped around her forearm. "Okay, fine," she said, and when Kassandra released her, she rocked back on her heels, putting space between them. "Have it your way."</p><p>Kassandra shivered again, her spine cold where it pressed against the glass window.</p><p>The woman frowned and leaned closer. Her irises were rimmed with red, and graphite smudged the skin below her eyes. She clearly hadn't been sleeping much.</p><p>Kassandra could guess the reason why. She looked down at her hands. Stupid, coming back here — she should have left things to her research and legal teams and stayed out of the way.</p><p>"How does your head feel?" the woman asked.</p><p>"I've got a headache."</p><p>"Did you lose consciousness?"</p><p>"For a moment, if that."</p><p>"Stay here, okay? I'll be right back."</p><p>Footsteps, then rustling, and a drawer opening and closing. More rustling. More footsteps. And then the woman was back and handing her a bag of ice wrapped in a clean bar towel.</p><p>Kassandra took the ice and pressed it against the back of her head. "Thanks."</p><p>"Don't thank me. This wouldn't have happened if I'd locked the fucking door like I was supposed to."</p><p>"And you didn't because I was distracting you."</p><p>"You sure as hell did." The woman shook her head irritably. "Offering to buy me out. You don't even know what my books look like."</p><p>"I don't even know your name."</p><p>Her eyes widened a fraction. "Don't you have... people to figure stuff like that out for you?"</p><p>"Yes, but I was holding out hope you'd volunteer it."</p><p>She snorted. "Even after I told you to fuck off."</p><p>"I guess I'm just optimistic."</p><p>"No, you're just used to getting whatever you want."</p><p><em>It's called winning,</em> Kassandra's brain offered unhelpfully, but she clamped her mouth shut around the words just in time.</p><p>They stared at each other in a silence that grew more and more awkward until the woman sighed and gave in. "My name's Kyra."</p><p>Kassandra extended her hand purely out of reflex. "Kassandra."</p><p>"I know," Kyra said dryly, and after the slightest of hesitations, she reached for Kassandra's hand and shook it.</p><p>A handshake was a message, and Kyra's said <em>I don't suffer fools gladly</em>. Her grip was firm but not crushing — though the muscles in her hands certainly held the strength to do so. Solid muscles, calloused skin. Powerlifter? No, too lean across her shoulders and thighs. Her mystery remained unsolved.</p><p>The ice was working its magic, tamping down the ache in Kassandra's skull. "I'll call that Uber now," she said.</p><p>"How did you get here?"</p><p>"Drove."</p><p>Kyra said nothing for several seconds, lost in thought. Then she gave a quick nod and said, "Look. I'll drive you home, or wherever. If you want. It's the least I can do after you..."</p><p>She didn't say <em>ended up with a concussion on my behalf</em> but she could have. Kassandra considered the offer. Passing out in her own car was more appealing than passing out in some random Uber, but there'd be a stranger at the wheel either way. She could see herself now: out cold in the front seat of her Audi, a flash of brake lights, the door opening, then Kyra dumping her into the nearest gutter...</p><p>Of course, if she was that worried about it, she could just call an ambulance.</p><p>"Okay," she said.</p><p>"Okay." Kyra sat back. "You all right with waiting a few minutes? I've got to close out the till."</p><p>"Sure."</p><p>Time passed in the form of sounds and silence, and then Kyra was crouching in front of her and asking, "Ready?" and when Kassandra nodded yes, Kyra offered a hand and helped haul her to her feet.</p><p>The room tilted out from under her, the floor bending like a rubber band.</p><p>A strong hand slid under her upper arm and steadied her. "You gonna make it?"</p><p>"I'm fine." She stared at the floor until its planks straightened again.</p><p>"Sure you are," Kyra said, but she didn't let go. She guided Kassandra around the stools that had fallen from the bar, and only released her when they stood before the door to the shop.</p><p>Kyra unlocked the door with a twist and jingle of metal keys, and then it swung open and Kassandra stepped into cool, night air. She waved Kyra's hands away and took a deep breath. The damp breeze sweeping in from the river was almost enough to cover the greasy carbon smell of exhaust. Around them, the sidewalks were already empty. No city packed up and went home as early as Portland did.</p><p>Her Audi sat by itself a few spaces up the way, lit by a streetlight. "I'm assuming that's yours," Kyra said, nodding in its direction, and she could have been pointing out a garbage truck for all the enthusiasm in her voice.</p><p>"Yeah." Kassandra walked gingerly to the car. The streetlight blazed down, bright as a spotlight. It made her eyeballs throb, and she squinted as she opened the passenger door and eased herself inside the car, grateful for the darkness of its interior.</p><p>It was disconcerting, sitting on this side of her own car, a mirror universe where everything was reversed and a stranger was sliding into the driver's seat. Kassandra leaned back so her head held the bag of ice in place — and then she pulled her seatbelt extra snug.</p><p>"It's like the cockpit of the space shuttle in here," Kyra said, as she ran her hands over the steering wheel and eyed the blank computer screen that took the place of a gauge cluster.</p><p>Kassandra grinned. "Push the big red button to start the launch sequence. Just don't... <em>stomp</em> on the gas."</p><p>But Kyra didn't leap at the chance to drive it like she'd stolen it. She took her time adjusting the mirrors and getting comfortable in her seat, and only then did she push the button to start the car, biting off a curse at the sudden roar of a hundred explosions a second being contained in the engine right behind her. Then she checked her blind spot and pulled onto Belmont as Kassandra worked the navigation system to make the route to her condo appear on the display.</p><p>Kyra's driving was competent and composed, and Kassandra began to relax despite the growing silence between them. They knew next to nothing about each other, and what they did know was something neither wanted to talk about.</p><p>The car turned as smoothly as a greased bearing onto the Burnside Bridge, the river an oily black ribbon below. At the far end of the bridge, the big "Portland Oregon" sign flashed its lightbulbs and neon, a vintage throwback that set the tone for the neighborhoods behind it.</p><p>Kyra changed lanes. "I'm surprised this thing doesn't drive itself."</p><p>"In a few more years I'm sure they'll come out with one that does, unfortunately."</p><p>"Unfortunately?" The passing streetlights lit her face in alternating stripes of light and shadow.</p><p>"I like driving. The sound, the feel of it."</p><p>"Driving one of these, sure. You're like a shark among the sardines."</p><p>"True." Kassandra couldn't imagine driving a beater Honda in rush hour traffic, and was glad she'd never had to experience that particular displeasure.</p><p>They glided downtown in a smooth bubble of movement, and whether that was from the car or from Kyra's driving, Kassandra couldn't say. Downtown, where food trucks clustered under high-rise office buildings and tent cities squatted within sight of every luxury hotel.</p><p>Burnside Street took them to 10th and the Pearl District — a neighborhood as clean, shiny, and multilayered as its namesake. Dig far enough and you'd hit the industrial sands it was built upon.</p><p>"Turn into that driveway on the left," Kassandra said as she fished her keycard out of her wallet. The gate lifted and let them inside, and she guided Kyra through the cramped nautilus of the carpark until they reached another gate. This one led to her private garage, isolated and secure.</p><p>The garage had three bays, but she hadn't bothered to ship any of her other cars here. Instead, she'd brought a pair of motorcycles: her favorite Triumph custom for the street and another bike for the dirt. The riding here was supposed to be some of the best in the world, but she'd rarely had any free time to find out.</p><p>Kyra eyed the bikes as she shut the engine off and opened her door.</p><p>"You ride?" Kassandra asked from the other side of the car.</p><p>"Nah," Kyra said. "I'd never have the time." A shame. She'd look good swinging her leg over that Triumph, wearing a black leather jacket to go with the red lumberjack flannel and jeans she was wearing now...</p><p>Her voice brought Kassandra back to reality. "You've got someone at home to watch you tonight, right?"</p><p>This is what Kassandra would come home to: high ceilings, tasteful furnishings, a spectacular view of the city — all of it very, very empty in its solitude. She'd have to admit it one way or another, but if she stayed silent she wouldn't have to hear herself say the words out loud.</p><p>Kyra looked at her. "You don't," she said quietly, and Kassandra couldn't tell if she was surprised by it or not. "I fucking knew I should have driven you to Legacy and bounced you onto the doorstep of the ER."</p><p>"I'm glad you didn't," Kassandra said. "And now that I'm here, you've done your good deed and you're free to go. I'll call an Uber for you, or a taxi. Whatever you want."</p><p>"Oh no, I'm not about to let you go on alone, just so you can die all by yourself."</p><p>"Wanting to watch is a bit bloodthirsty, don't you think?"</p><p>It was a good thing there was a car between them, because Kyra looked about ready to strangle her. "That's not what I meant."</p><p>Kassandra couldn't help herself, and she laughed even though it made her headache flare. "Well, come on, then. You can hate me up close all you want."</p><p>Up close is exactly what they got: in the stairwell, in the narrow hallway to the private elevator that serviced the upper floors of the tower, and in the elevator itself, where Kyra stood as far away from her as possible. Kassandra slapped her keycard against the reader. The numbers on the floor indicator ticked higher and higher, until they weren't numbers at all, just "PH".</p><p>The elevator released them into a small foyer.</p><p>"I don't hate you," Kyra said suddenly.</p><p>"Jesus doesn't like it when you lie," Kassandra said as she used her keycard to unlock her front door, and whatever Kyra's answer would have been was swept aside by their arrival.</p><p>The lighting and window systems woke up as Kassandra's smartphone connected to her home network. A soft glow from unobtrusive fixtures brightened the open interior of the space, while the windows shed their tint to put the city skyline on full display.</p><p>Kassandra crossed the room and sank onto the low-slung couch with a grateful sigh. She kicked off her shoes, then set the melted bag of ice down on the glass end table beside her.</p><p>Kyra was still lingering by the door, where the nearest wall displayed a triptych of poster-sized, black and white photographs. A lone dirtbike outracing a dust storm across the desert. A crumbling building made abstract in shadows and light. A landscape of the mountains encircling the bowl of Death Valley.</p><p>"Who took these?" Kyra's voice echoed from across the room.</p><p>"I did." Back when she had time to ride and travel. Now most of her shots were hurried sketches taken with her phone.</p><p>Kyra's circuit of the wall pulled her past the flatscreen TV, past Kassandra's bookshelves, until she stood in front of the windows. "It's so beautiful," she murmured as she gazed at the twinkling panorama of the city's east side.</p><p>Kassandra nearly got lost watching Kyra enjoy the view before she remembered her manners. "Can I offer you something to drink? Beer? Water?" She grinned. "Coffee?"</p><p>That made Kyra turn and approach the couch. "Is it from Starbucks? Then no, thank you." She picked up the soggy bag of ice on her way past, holding up a hand when Kassandra sat forward. "No, don't get up. I can find my way to your fridge," she said, glancing at the kitchen in full view before them. A trace of humor instead of irritation. Seemed this evening would bring Kassandra one surprise after another.</p><p>But no surprise would top the fact that there was someone else here with her. She'd never invited anyone — no friends, no lovers — to her home, or to any of her homes, really, and now some stranger was rooting around in her refrigerator and cupboards.</p><p>She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of Kyra making herself right at home: the fridge and cabinet doors opening and closing, a quiet "Ahh!" of surprise as Kyra found her coffee stash, and then the kettle being filled and a gas burner igniting.</p><p>Then there was a gentle swirl of air beside her: Kyra, perching on the armrest of the couch, offering her a fresh bag of ice and a bottle of water. "You should drink this," she said.</p><p>Kassandra raised the bottle in thanks and took a swig.</p><p>"You've got beans from Camber and Sweet Bloom. So you do know something about good coffee."</p><p>"Not as much as I should. But coffee's not really my gig," she said, well aware of how it sounded. "I know a lot more about buildings and the land they sit on." She'd cut real estate deals and maximized returns on investments for over a decade, always high enough up the chain where the numbers involved had at least seven digits, insulated from ever having to see that the mom-and-pop competition belonged to real people instead of numbers on a spreadsheet.</p><p>Kyra's jaw clenched around a response. "I hope you don't mind me dipping into your stash," she said instead, keeping up the détente between them. "I'm going to be up awhile."</p><p>"Have as much as you want."</p><p>The sound of the kettle whistling drew Kyra away, and when she returned a few minutes later, it was with a mug cradled in her hands. She sat at the edge of the armchair across from Kassandra and closed her eyes as she inhaled the steam. "I'd offer you a cup, but I'm not sure you should with..." She gestured vaguely towards her head.</p><p>"I'm fine with this," Kassandra said, tilting her water bottle. "Which one did you pick?"</p><p>"The Sweet Bloom." Kyra sipped from the mug, then shrugged. "Aspirational, I guess, given our circumstances. And this particular roast cuts a nice profile."</p><p>"How so?"</p><p>"Light, honeyed, lots of florals. And brewed right, the results are"—she sipped again and smiled—"amazing."</p><p>That smile was enough to fill Kassandra with the irrational urge to keep her talking. "Who's your roaster?"</p><p>"Heart, here in town."</p><p>"Ahh, I should have known." They had a coffee shop of their own just up the street. "Why them?"</p><p>"They're local. And they haven't sold out to Wall Street like Stumptown did." She stood up, abruptly, and took her mug over to the windows, drinking from it as she watched the city lights. "Do you know why all the indie roasters started focusing on lighter roasts?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Because Starbucks went in hard on the dark roasts." Then she laughed, a brittle sound that bounced off the window glass. "I got into this business as a barista first, because I love how the best coffee tastes. I still do. I'll never serve anything less." She gazed pensively at the city, seconds stretching into minutes. Eventually, she turned to Kassandra. "How's your head?"</p><p>"Sore, but I'll live." She turned her neck experimentally. Still stiff. At least her head wasn't ringing anymore.</p><p>Kyra returned to the armchair and sat down. "Tired?" she asked.</p><p>"A little." More than a little. She'd been up since five and it had to be well past midnight by now.</p><p>"Sleeping would actually be good for you."</p><p>"Really? I thought it was the opposite," Kassandra said, remembering being poked and prodded on team flights and buses, kept from sleeping by assistant coaches after games where she'd cracked skulls with some opposing player. But that had been a long time ago.</p><p>Kyra flashed her a wicked grin. "That's why I'll be here to wake you up every couple of hours, to make sure you're just sleeping and not slipping into a coma."</p><p>Kassandra had been prepared for awkward silences, and perhaps some talking spiked with vicious, vicious words. But falling asleep while Kyra had free reign of her home... This <em>was</em> a terrible plan.</p><p>Kyra's grin grew wider. "Don't look so scared. My face is all over your security cameras and you know exactly where to find me." She made a show of studying her manicure. "Besides, murder's not really my style."</p><p>She had a point — and an actual sense of humor. Kassandra smiled. "I'm not so sure. You seem to know a suspicious amount about head injuries."</p><p>"I've seen enough of them to pick up a thing or two."</p><p>"I didn't know the coffee business was so dangerous."</p><p>"Not at the shop," she said, rolling her eyes. "Out on the rock, and in the climbing gym."</p><p>Rock climbing. How had Kassandra missed that connection? "Cliffhanger."</p><p>"My three loves put together."</p><p>Coffee, climbing, and books. "Tell me about them?" Kassandra winced at how inane the question sounded.</p><p>"I can definitely bore you to sleep if that's what you want."</p><p>"If I fall asleep, it won't be because I'm bored." And right on cue, she yawned.</p><p>"Well, this won't take long, then," Kyra said brightly. "So speaking of the folks at Heart — they called me up last week, all hot about this small, family farm they'd stumbled across the last time they were in Honduras..."</p><p>And Kyra talked, about heirloom coffee, and how roasters searched the world for the most interesting varieties, and Kassandra stretched out on the couch and listened, sometimes asking a question, but mostly resting in silence, mostly thinking about what it was like hearing another voice in a room that was usually so quiet and still.</p><p>And much later, she woke up to Kyra's hands gently tucking a blanket around her. "I'm awake," she murmured, wriggling in the blanket's soft cocoon.</p><p>"So you are," Kyra said wryly. She settled back into the armchair and picked up the book she'd set aside. "Go back to sleep."</p><p>"Not yet," Kassandra said, her voice thick and drowsy. The blanket was warm, like Kyra's hands had been. "I want to know what book... you're..." And then her brain tucked itself in and said good night.</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. the changing levels</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kyra awoke with something hard jabbing into her thigh. She pulled the sharp corner of a book away from her leg, and blinked back the veil of sleep while she regained her bearings. The chair she sat in was uncomfortable and unfamiliar, and she shifted positions, feeling wool under her fingertips, concrete under her feet. She was still in Kassandra's condo, and this hadn't been some stress-induced dream.</p><p>The owner of the book and uncomfortable chair and concrete floor was still sleeping on the couch nearby, blissfully oblivious to her presence.</p><p>Kyra glanced out the windows. What time was it? The skies outside were chalkboard black, the city winking back at her through the glass. She touched the screen of her phone awake. Two-thirty in the morning. Opening the shop in three hours was going to suck.</p><p>She only had herself to blame. She was the one who'd offered to drive Kassandra home. She could have ignored Kassandra's protests and called an ambulance. Let the EMTs haul her away. Problem solved.</p><p>That there was a problem to be solved at all was also Kyra's fault. She'd left the front door unlocked, and the shop's bright lights had drawn that tweaker inside with the gravitational pull of the sun. If she hadn't done that, he wouldn't have been able to attack her, and Kassandra... Kassandra wouldn't have put herself in danger by stepping into his path instead.</p><p>The incident took no more than a few seconds. Kyra's memory of it flickered past in still frames from a blurry video, but there was no mistaking the central figure in each one.</p><p>Kassandra.</p><p>She'd done Kyra a reckless, foolhardy kindness, despite Kyra's best attempts to give her every reason not to.</p><p>Kyra looked at Kassandra again. She really was gorgeous, stretched out like a slumbering lion across the couch. Kyra shook the thought away and studied the book in her hands, with its thick cover and mix of heavy paper and vellum pages, hefty for an otherwise small volume. Anne Carson's reimagination of Antigone. <em>I like a good argument, marrow versus marrow...</em></p><p>The moment Kassandra had fallen asleep, Kyra had gone to the bookshelves and found a collection of tomes as tasteful as everything else inside this concrete box of a condo. All the titans were there, from Atwood to Zola, Booker prize-winners rubbing covers with Pulitzers, their spines uncreased and bookstore-fresh.</p><p>None of the books had been read. It was as if Kassandra had arranged to fill her bookshelves with a cross section of capital-L literature without bothering to crack them open even once. Kyra had a vision of Mars as seen through an old telescope, its surface cloaked with dark expanses once mistaken for seas until closer inspection revealed them to be as barren as the rest of the planet.</p><p>Kyra had rolled her eyes at the fakery, but then her gaze snagged on a book unlike the others, and she realized that her first glance may not have been entirely accurate. Then curiosity took over, which was how a copy of <em>Antigonick</em> had ended up in her hands. Apparently, there was life on Mars after all.</p><p>With hours to fill, she'd settled in and started reading, flipping pages in a book so worn that its cover flopped open flat on its own.</p><p>Now it was two-thirty in the morning in Kassandra's home, with Kassandra's book in her lap, and she remembered how the Greek chorus in that book sang accusingly at the god of desire: <em>You change the levels of a person's mind</em>.</p><p>She stood up abruptly. She returned to the row of shelves, slid the book back where it came from, and studied the others, looking for signs of wear, looking for signs of life.</p><p>She was snooping and she didn't care. Kassandra slept on, none the wiser, as Kyra found worn covers on predictable heavyweights like <em>Wolf Hall</em> and <em>The Prince</em> mixed with surprises like Chiang's <em>Stories of Your Life and Others</em> and a copy of the <em>Meditations</em> of Marcus Aurelius that was so tattered from use it nearly fell apart in her hands.</p><p>She never would have thought Kassandra a stoic. Spartan maybe, given the simplicity of her surroundings, but not stoic.</p><p>The surprises kept coming: in the amount of poetry contained in Kassandra's shelves and in the fact that the poetry was more likely to have been read than the prose. And then Kyra hit paydirt, in a heavy, library-bound tome with "Ψάπφω" embossed on the cover, filled with pages of photographic reproductions of what looked to be papyrus fragments.</p><p>And in the margins of each page were annotations written in a forceful, propulsive scrawl. English mixed with what looked like Greek. Kyra would have to take the words written in English at face value; despite her Greek heritage, she'd never learned the language or any of its ancient forms.</p><p><em>among mortal women, [know that?]</em><br/>
<em>you could release me</em><br/>
<em>from every care</em></p><p>Kyra couldn't read the book's title, but she still had a good guess what it was. She turned the page, then the next, skimming translation after translation, some crossed out, others given a second attempt, and then she spotted one that leapt off the page:</p><p><em>someone will [did??] remember us</em><br/>
<em>I tell you</em><br/>
<em>in another time</em></p><p>The book in Kyra's hands was Kassandra's attempt at translating <em>Sappho</em>.</p><p>If studying Kassandra's bookshelves was snooping, this suddenly felt like reading her diary. Kyra shut the book, the covers closing with a loud snap, and she winced and held her breath while Kassandra stirred on the couch.</p><p>A momentary rustling, then silence again. Kassandra hadn't woken up. Kyra returned the book to its home on the shelf and went to the windows. There wasn't just life on Mars, but an entire hidden ecosystem, and now having discovered it, she wished she could forget it existed.</p><p>She frowned into the darkness. Somewhere to the east, Mount Hood was waiting until dawn to make its grand entrance onto the cityscape. Kassandra's view would be spectacular, as a view from a penthouse should.</p><p>Kyra's frown deepened. Penthouse. "PH" in the private elevator that serviced a private garage. Follow the trickle of money down to the space-age car, the hand-tailored suits, the twenty-dollar lattes. She'd missed the obvious, over and over.</p><p>A place like this couldn't be bought with a VP's salary — even one at Starbucks. It would take real money, <em>fuck-you</em> money, the kind of money that cascaded from one generation to the next in an endless flow. Kyra looked back at the couch and the woman sleeping upon it.</p><p>Kassandra wasn't just rich — she was fucking <em>wealthy</em>.</p><p>It made sense now: the careful curation of Kassandra's social media, the steady stream of favorable press, her reluctance to call the cops. It was how someone with vast amounts of money could hide in plain sight, floating through life without needing a security detail to protect her from the crazies like Bezos and Gates did.</p><p>But with all that money, why did she even bother with work?</p><p>Kassandra would take Kyra's shop, not because she needed to make a living, but because she simply <em>could</em>, and it didn't matter if she liked Marcus Aurelius or read poetry or translated Sappho. She'd do the job and Kyra wouldn't be able to do a damn thing to stop her.</p><p>Kyra didn't belong here. Maybe in another time things could have been different. In this one...</p><p>She walked across the room and knelt by the couch. "Kassandra. Hey."</p><p>Kassandra's eyes blinked open.</p><p>"You alive?"</p><p>"No," she said, then smiled. "Yes." She glanced around the room. "What time is it?"</p><p>"Almost three."</p><p>"Shit. I'm sorry." She sounded like she meant it.</p><p>"What time's your alarm set for?"</p><p>"Five-thirty."</p><p>Good. Kyra wouldn't need to stay much longer. "You've lasted this long, you'll probably survive to hear it."</p><p>The smile faded. "You sound disappointed."</p><p>"Get some sleep," Kyra said. "Five-thirty's coming up fast." She got up before Kassandra could answer, moved back to the chair, sat, and tried not to think of anything while Kassandra's gaze bore down on her with the weight of a hydraulic press.</p><p>It took forever before Kassandra's breathing finally relaxed and deepened with sleep, but when it did, Kyra quietly moved across the room and slipped out the front door. Her debt to Kassandra's inexplicable gallantry was paid in full.</p><p>The elevator whisked her to the building's lobby, an airy chamber of blonde wood and minimal metal, warm and smelling faintly of lavender. Then she pushed open the glass door, stepped into the cold, damp, river bottom air of the real world, and left Kassandra and her gleaming tower far, far behind.</p><p>.oOo.</p><p>Eleven o'clock and the Sunday morning brunch rush was still underway. The flow of customers had been steady since she'd opened at six, but as nice as it was to ring up sale after sale, she was running on fumes.</p><p>Pete could tell. They'd bumped elbows once and had a few near misses behind the bar, and after that he kept giving her sidelong looks.</p><p>She was pulling a shot under his watchful gaze when her patience with him finally frayed. "Say whatever it is you want to say."</p><p>"Take a break after this drink. Fifteen minutes would do you good."</p><p>And give every person standing in line an excuse to whine on Yelp because their drinks took a few minutes longer than they wanted? "Not yet."</p><p>"When?"</p><p>She lifted the pitcher of steamed milk, then stopped just before the pour. Her hands were shaking, and she couldn't get them to stop.</p><p>He stepped into her space, his bulky powerlifter's body towering over her, and gently took the pitcher from her hand.</p><p>She watched silently as he finished the drink for her, and when stillness returned to her hands and forearms, she picked up a to-go lid from the stack and gestured for him to put the drink down on the counter. "When Phoibe comes in," she said.</p><p>"Kyra..."</p><p>She snapped the lid onto the cup and handed it to the customer waiting on the other side of the counter.</p><p>The man sipped his drink and gave her a grateful nod, now fortified with enough caffeine to wait two hours in line for a seat at the diner up the block. Pete was already talking to the next customer, but before he could tell her what to make, a flash of color pulled her eyes to the front door.</p><p>A tiny, black-haired Korean woman bustled into the shop, dwarfed by a sprawling bouquet of flowers in her arms. Every eye in the shop turned to watch her walk up to the counter. "Are you Kyra?" she asked.</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"For you, lucky girl." She placed the glass vase at the edge of the counter and stepped back to inspect her work.</p><p>Kyra's hand slid into her back pocket for her wallet, but the woman wagged a finger at her and said, "No, no. All taken care of. Enjoy." Then she smiled brightly and disappeared out the door.</p><p>Kyra eyed the slice of meadow that had appeared as suddenly as spring: sprigs of white serviceberry blossoms hovering over matte green leaves, pink clusters of sea blush, all nestling contentedly in a bed of ferns, the serrated fronds twined with sweetpea vines in full bloom.</p><p>They were the real life inspiration for the tattoo that wound around her right arm, every plant and flower growing wild in Oregon. They'd greeted her every spring, after Nia had taken her in and they began spending the warmer months up at the homestead in Estacada, its lush forest and sparkling river a shocking change of scenery to a gutterpunk who grew up in the grey grime of Portland's streets.</p><p>A card peeked out from the greenery, its handwriting familiar. She could almost hear Kassandra saying its words out loud.</p><p>
  <em>Thanks for the ride home — and for looking out for me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-K</em>
</p><p>Kyra's ears buzzed and her head swam dizzily as she floated on a curious feeling of elation. Then she blew out the breath she'd been holding. It was the lack of oxygen making her feel loopy. That's all.</p><p>So Kassandra was observant. All hunters were. And Kyra would be a fool to think otherwise, that this was anything other than a ploy to soften her up.</p><p>Kassandra would be back. The only question was <em>When?</em></p><p>.oOo.</p><p>It wasn't Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, and after Thursday crawled by and Kyra had begun to hope that maybe, just maybe, her prayers had been answered and Kassandra had moved on to richer hunting grounds, the door to the shop clanged open five minutes before close.</p><p>This time, she didn't even turn around when Kassandra walked up to the counter. She just kept spinning the cup in her hand against the towel she'd been using to dry it off. "How's your head?" she asked.</p><p>"Much better, thanks."</p><p>She put the cup away with the rest, then turned to Kassandra, noting her lack of suit jacket and the extra button open at the neck of her dress shirt. Working late, perhaps. "I got the flowers."</p><p>"Good." Kassandra's face gave nothing away, her answer too short to offer any clues about the purpose of her visit.</p><p>"They were beautiful," Kyra said. "Where did you find them?"</p><p>"I've been exploring the city in my off hours. Sometimes I end up at a farmers' market and find a Korean family selling the most amazing wildflowers. Sometimes I end up in coffee shops where I find more than I bargained for."</p><p>Kyra tossed the towel next to the rack of cups. "Why are you here, Kassandra?"</p><p>"You keep asking me that."</p><p>"You never give me a good answer."</p><p>"I like the way you make coffee."</p><p>Kyra folded her arms.</p><p>"Ahh, you're not really asking about me then," Kassandra said with an air of amused patience.</p><p>She'd guessed wrong, but Kyra didn't correct her.</p><p>Eventually, she sighed into the silence. "Like I said, a new flagship store. That's the plan."</p><p>"There's already one in the Pearl." A massive shop, three stories high, a layer cake of espresso counters and seating and retail encased in a shiny frosting of glass and steel.</p><p>"Seattle has more than one, San Francisco does too. Time to add another on this side of the river. Little Portland's growing up."</p><p>Kyra stepped out from behind the counter. This time, she locked the front door before doing anything else. "You'd be better off at the Convention Center than all the way down here," she said over her shoulder.</p><p>"Probably. But I wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I didn't know the landscape of the entire east side." Kassandra moved to the windows and began helping flip stools onto the bar. "My offer still stands, by the way."</p><p>Kyra stopped mid-flip, then put the stool in her hands back down on the floor. "Suppose I said yes. What do you think I'd do with myself then?"</p><p>Kassandra didn't have a ready answer for that. She tilted her head, squinting at Kyra as she thought. "I don't know," she said. She seemed surprised by her own admission. "Take a vacation?"</p><p>"You're damn right I would. Someplace nice and sunny with enough five-twelve routes to keep me climbing for weeks. And afterwards, I'd come home and... what then?" She ran her hand along the bar. Ten years ago, she'd rescued the oak plank from the collapsing ruin that had once been the homestead's workshop. She'd attacked it with a sander, finished it with shellac, installed it against the window with her own hands. "Selling this place would net me — what, a hundred thousand if I'm lucky?" Ten years of work, only to end up with less money than she'd started. "That money won't last forever."</p><p>A rattle at the front door turned both their heads at the same time. A woman stared back apologetically through the glass. Just someone looking for a last-minute caffeine fix. Kyra mouthed a <em>Sorry</em> and nodded up at the inert neon sign above her head.</p><p>"You could open another shop."</p><p>"And bust my ass starting over from scratch while waking up every day wondering if today's the day another suit like you is going to show up? That sounds fun." She was tiring of this conversation. "But worrying about things like that isn't something you'd understand."</p><p>"What do you mean?"</p><p>"How much does a gallon of milk cost?"</p><p>Kassandra's eyes narrowed. "Between three and five bucks a gallon around here. I know the price of bananas too in case you think I'm too out of touch to know that either."</p><p>The question had pissed her off. Good. Maybe she'd go away sooner. Kyra started sharpening another volley of words, knowing that Kassandra would raise her shield, and look at her with that mirror-finished glint in her eyes she'd used to turn Kyra's pointed remarks aside before. Kyra's heartbeat sped up, ready to rise to the challenge.</p><p>Instead, Kassandra's shoulders sagged and a strange expression slumped across her features, one that took Kyra several moments to identify as hurt. It scattered Kyra's snark, and left her with a pounding heart and nothing to say. She stared at Kassandra as the silence grew second by second, and when she was finally able to muster some words, they snuck out from her with a weary softness. "You didn't come here to talk about work, did you?"</p><p>"No." Kassandra turned away, straightening the stool she'd lifted onto the bar so its edges were lined up square. "I was hoping to get your help with something."</p><p>It was bait. It had to be. The longer Kyra let this conversation keep going, the more likely it was that she'd do something stupid. "My help with what, exactly?" she asked, while her brain howled in frustration.</p><p>"I've been invited to a... gala of sorts."</p><p>Kyra didn't like where Kassandra was going with this. "A gala," she said flatly. "Like ballgowns and dancing?"</p><p>"Not really. More like Patagonia fleece vests and fat wallets bumping into each other."</p><p>"And?"</p><p>"Will you come with me?"</p><p>"I think you're asking someone from the wrong social strata."</p><p>Hurt flickered through Kassandra's eyes a second time, but she smoothed it over with a faint smile and didn't miss a beat. "On the contrary, you'll fit in better than you think. It's a fundraiser for the Multnomah County Library."</p><p>"Surely I'm not the only person you know who reads books."</p><p>"You don't just read books. You climb."</p><p>An oddly specific combination. "You're plotting something."</p><p>"Nothing shady, I promise. Just come with me and talk to people. It'll only be a couple of hours — and there'll be an open bar."</p><p>Kyra was half-tempted to lie and say she didn't drink. "You actually think I'll say yes to this? I don't even—" <em>Like you</em>, she meant to say.</p><p>"It'd be an excellent opportunity to expand your network," Kassandra said, but then she shrugged off her own suit-speak with a grin. "Anyway, the Library wants to build a new children's wing, and I'm on a mission to separate some people from their money for a good cause. I think you can help me do that."</p><p>Think of the children. Kassandra's audacity seemed to have no bounds. "When is this thing?"</p><p>"Saturday night."</p><p>Shady or not, Kassandra was up to something, and saying <em>No</em> would cut Kyra off from any chance of finding out what it was. "Fine. Two hours, then I'm done," Kyra said. Against reason, against her better judgement, brain still howling as—</p><p>Kassandra's face lit with a triumphant smile.</p><p>The kind of face that made Kyra do stupid things.</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The translations of Sappho herein are loosely reworked versions of Carson's, from her foundational translation "If Not, Winter."</p><p>"among mortal women..." is a snippet from fr. 23.</p><p>The "did??" in Kassandra's translation of fr. 147 is a reversal of Casaubon's commonly-accepted emendation that changed "did remember" to "will remember". (Oh, to have a photo of the original papyri so I could puzzle out what the text actually said, but I'm no classics scholar...)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. the not date</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Two hours before Kassandra was supposed to meet Kyra downtown, she paced beside the wall of windows in her condo and tried to keep her eyes away from her old nemesis, the clock. This wasn't the unforgiving squeeze of pressure in the final seconds of a basketball game or the relentless climb of lap times at the track. This was time moving at a glacial scale.</p><p>She paced, and wondered how many steps it would take to wear a groove into the concrete floor. She paced, and tried not to think of the ways Kyra's presence had filled this room so completely, or how Kyra had stood by <em>this</em> window and sat in <em>that</em> chair. She paced, because if she stopped, her footsteps would fade and she'd have to admit how fucking quiet it was in here.</p><p>Her tank top stuck to her skin as she moved, and she realized she was sweating. The room was too hot, but the numbers on the climate control were the same as they'd always been. Her heartbeat was up, her breathing fast and shallow. With some effort, she diverted her steps away from the windows to the wet bar, and when she picked up a glass and a bottle of bourbon, her hands were trembling slightly.</p><p>She tipped a healthy pour into the glass, along with an ice cube, and as she lifted the drink, it slipped from her hand and shattered on the granite bar top.</p><p>Mother<em>fucker</em>. At least it wasn't from the bottle of antique single barrel.</p><p>She dug out a bar towel and a trash bin, and swept the shards and liquid into the bin along with the towel for good measure. She dug out another towel for the floor. On her knees mopping up broken glass and now all her muscles were jittery, not just her hands.</p><p>Try again. Another pour — this time it <em>was</em> the antique single barrel to make up for how well her evening had been going so far. Careful now. The bourbon hit her like a caramel bomb, and it sat back and fumed vanilla while the taste of fruit and honey danced on her tongue for several seconds. Nearly 130 proof and it went down smooth as cream.</p><p>The drink wrapped around her like a cashmere bathrobe as she savored it and watched the sun's rays slant across the river. After a while, her muscles were steady again, but her heart was still a whirring motor forced to idle on the dragstrip, waiting for that green light to go.</p><p>She carried her drink with her into her bedroom, threw open the doors to her closet, and surveyed her wardrobe. Time to do battle with Portland's sartorial lawlessness.</p><p>Individuality ruled this place, and nothing was ever cool if anyone else did it too. It was the opposite of L.A., which never met a trend it didn't want to chase. Portland was reflexively anti-trend, and even those with money had changed their ways to compensate, trying to downplay their net worths through their choice of clothes.</p><p>In this town, the penalty for overdressing wasn't embarrassment — it was distrust.</p><p>Kyra had that antiauthoritarian streak too. Kassandra had never met someone so repulsed by her money. Most were the opposite, wanting to get real close to her real fast. She'd learned early on that people were best kept at arm's length.</p><p>She was eight years old the first time her mother spoke to her directly about money, old enough to understand that a private boarding school in upstate New York was not how most kids grew up. Most kids saw their parents more often than birthdays and Christmas — even her classmates, most of whom belonged to the Northeastern elites. She'd been a bargaining chip in a divorce between an American father and a Greek mother, and New York was where she'd landed in the settlement. She never saw her father, even though he lived in New York City and was the one paying her tuition. He was too busy becoming a billionaire. Her mother lived in London then, working as a diplomatic attaché in the Greek embassy. Kassandra had quickly learned not to miss either of them. On rare occasions, her mother would fly in for a few days to visit her. They'd spend most of their time together in awkward silence, or muddling through stilted conversations like near-strangers. In one of them, she'd complained about a schoolmate, one of the day-goers who lived in the town nearby, who kept asking her for things, like pens, or notebooks, or erasers; who'd treat her sweetly as long as she handed them over but cruelly whenever she refused. Her mother had looked at her with her opaque diplomat's gaze and said, <em>You are a child of two families of wealth and power, Kassandra. Some recognize the resources you have, and want it only for themselves. They will try to take it from you.</em> And Kassandra had nodded as if she understood.</p><p>Pens and notebooks became pocket money became real money soon enough. She didn't truly understand her mother's warning until she arrived at Stanford, but by then she'd learned there were benefits to having all those resources, too.</p><p>She could have damn near any woman she wanted, and she did, quite often. And when she was done, she put them back where she'd found them. She had no idea how big her cumulative hotel bill was from all those indulgences around the world, but it was probably enough to buy another home to go with the apartment in New York City, the flats in London and Athens, the house in Seattle, and the condo in San Francisco.</p><p>She sipped her bourbon and ran her hand along her collection of bespoke suits. Then she heard her mother's voice again, from some other memory in their distant past. <em>The way we present ourselves to the world is a message, and a single glance will tell a stranger your taste, your means, and your confidence.</em></p><p>Odd, all these thoughts about her mother. She was back in Athens now, the Cabinet Minister of Economy and Development in the new government. Kassandra hadn't seen her in years. But she'd been right about the message a wardrobe could send, and as Kassandra pulled hangers off the rack, she wondered what message Kyra might be composing.</p><p>She set her drink aside and pulled on a pair of sand-colored trousers cut from fine English twill, a lightweight denim shirt in a medium wash, and a linen sport jacket the golden brown of a Cuban cigar. Would Kyra wear a flannel shirt to a fundraising gala? She'd probably get away with it if she did. Maybe she'd wear the lumberjack one and lean full tilt into Portland's "Stumptown" persona.</p><p>Kassandra frowned as she adjusted her collar in the mirror. A tie would be too formal for this audience, but to go without was unappealing. She browsed her drawers of neckties and accessories until she found a navy blue neckerchief and a matching pocket square. Perfect.</p><p>She imagined Kyra the lumberjack smirking into her own mirror at home. Hell, maybe she already had someone there to show off for, someone to ask, <em>How do I look?</em></p><p>Then Kassandra fought back a sigh and lifted her wrist to unbuckle her watch, and in her bedroom's cavernous silence, she could hear the watch's mechanical movement tick-tick-ticking away.</p><p>.oOo.</p><p>Five minutes past seven o'clock, she was strolling up Alder Street in search of the right address when she heard a "Hey!" from a passing car, and looked over just in time to see Kyra emerge from the back seat of a taxi.</p><p>She'd guessed wrong. Kyra had left the flannel at home. Instead, she wore black on black on black: a long-sleeve button-down tucked into tight jeans cuffed at mid-calf over combat boots. She wasn't here to be charming; she was here to kick ass.</p><p>Kyra raked her with a glance. "You look... nice," she said, and it was hard to tell what flavor of nice she really meant.</p><p>Style lived and died by details, and Kassandra could take in all of Kyra's details now that she was standing up close. Kyra's shirt was fine linen, embroidered with small dots of charcoal grey thread in a pattern reminiscent of Dotted Swiss fabric. It gave the shirt texture and interest. Kassandra had never seen her without mascara and eyeliner on, but now she'd added red lipstick, a dash of color mirrored at the cuffs of her jeans, where the rolled fabric revealed red stitching.</p><p>And she'd pulled her hair up into an artfully messy bun, exposing the lines of her neck along with a silver necklace and circular pendant. All together, it was a bold, confident variation of what Kassandra was learning was her signature style. The only thing missing was her tattoos, hidden under long sleeves.</p><p>Kassandra swallowed into a suddenly dry mouth. "So do you." She meant it.</p><p>The smallest hint of color crept into Kyra's cheeks. "So," she said before the pause grew awkward. "Who am I supposed to be tonight? A friend, or..."</p><p>"A friend would be fine." More than that would be dangerous for Kassandra. She'd have to be satisfied seeing Kyra struggle to hide how much she despised her.</p><p>Kassandra gestured towards the massive wooden door behind them. "Shall we?" A carved wooden sign was affixed to the wall beside the door that read, <em>Multnomah Whiskey Library, Members Only.</em></p><p>She pulled the door open and let Kyra pass through first.</p><p>"So this is the infamous Whiskey Library," Kyra said once inside.</p><p>"Ever been here before?"</p><p>Kyra snorted. "Fuck no. I'm not paying for the privilege of paying for drinks I could easily make at home." She peered into a glass display case as she passed. "Okay maybe I don't have any twelve hundred dollar bottles of bourbon. But I could make you a damn good cocktail, so good you wouldn't even miss it."</p><p><em>I could make you a damn good cocktail.</em> "Would you?"</p><p>"Would I what?"</p><p>"Make me a cocktail sometime."</p><p>She shrugged. "Maybe. You're a decent tipper. That's earned you some points."</p><p>"You'd actually make me pay for it?"</p><p>"We're not friends yet," she said breezily. "And I don't work for free."</p><p>The doorway to the greatroom beckoned. Kassandra leaned close to Kyra and whispered in her ear. "We're supposed to be. Tonight." Close enough to catch Kyra's scent: a faint hint of coffee, and the spice of some aromatic wood. Cedar maybe, ancient and heady, wafting from the sun-warmed deck of a Kyprian trireme as it cleaved the clear blue waves of the Aegean...</p><p>The pleasant image dissipated when Kyra came to an abrupt halt just inside the greatroom. She craned her neck, taking in the sight of heavy oak beams and crystal chandeliers hanging high over brick walls paneled with mahogany. The entire back of the room was dominated by the bar, an imposing structure made of even more mahogany, crowned by shelves packed with bottles. The bartenders wore waistcoats and ties with their shirts, and used an antique library ladder to reach the bottles on the upper tiers.</p><p>"I hope you aren't expecting me to hop over that bar to fix you something right now."</p><p>Kassandra laughed. "No. However, I <em>am</em> expecting you to have a nice time." And to have a chat with her target. If her hunch proved true, he'd find Kyra very intriguing indeed.</p><p>"I'll drink to that," Kyra said drily.</p><p>The room was filling up. They moved through the throng, pausing here and there as Kassandra greeted those she knew, until they reached the bar.</p><p>Kyra wandered off to order, while Kassandra recognized a man standing nearby as one of the Multnomah County commissioners.</p><p>"Chuck Meeran?" She offered her hand. "Kassandra Agiadis. So wonderful to finally meet you."</p><p>His handshake was as carefully modulated as any politicians' and he had to tilt his head up to look in her eyes. She could see the wheels turning as he tried to place her name, then the slight widening of recognition. "Ms. Agiadis. It's a pleasure." Only a fractional stumble over the unfamiliar pronunciation of her name. Not bad. He flashed her a friendly smile. "I take it you're not here on coffee business?"</p><p>She smiled to match his own. "I'm just a civilian tonight," she said. She glanced at the drink in his hand and pulled on an air of confused helplessness. "I've never been here before, is there a drink you'd recommend?" Men never relaxed around her until they felt themselves superior in some way. Sometimes it paid to speed the process along.</p><p>"First time at the Library, really?"</p><p>She leaned closer and whispered, "Don't tell anyone, but I just moved here from Seattle." A wink and a smile. Maybe a donation to his re-election campaign later. Greasing the wheels, for the day when one of her companies needed a zoning change, or a variance.</p><p>"Ahh yes. As a Timbers fan, I'll try not to hold it against you," he said generously. "Now let's see, if you like a lot of rye..."</p><p>She half-listened as he incorrected himself, while sneaking glances up the bar at Kyra, who was leaning conspiratorially in conversation with one of the bartenders — a stocky woman, tidy in her wool waistcoat and polka-dot pocket square. Kassandra felt her eyes narrow, and only after some effort did she manage to wrangle her face back to neutral as the Commissioner blathered on.</p><p>It took a few minutes, but Kassandra extracted herself from the conversation with a promise to schedule lunch "very soon" and a glass of some unremarkable bourbon in her hand.</p><p>Kyra and the bartender were chuckling over some shared joke. "Seriously," she said, rolling her eyes as the bartender chuckled some more and moved away to take another order.</p><p>Kyra leaned back against the bar as Kassandra approached. "Jesus, you weren't kidding about all the Patagucci vests."</p><p>"It's a thing," Kassandra said. Even trend-hating Portland wasn't immune to the plague of finance and tech bros who'd decided that fleece vests were the pinnacle of style. "I don't understand it myself."</p><p>The area around the bar was starting to get crowded. Kyra pushed herself away from it to let a laughing couple move past. She sipped her drink and studied the assembled guests. "Why am I here tonight, Kassandra?"</p><p>Kassandra led her to a slightly more quiet corner of the room. "I want you to meet someone."</p><p>"Are they here yet?"</p><p>Was she that anxious to leave already? Kassandra hoped not, because her target seemed to be missing. She scanned the crowd again just to be sure, using her height to full advantage. No sign of him. "No, not yet."</p><p>Kyra's gaze settled upon her. "I bet you go to shit like this all the time."</p><p>"More than I'd like to."</p><p>After that, silence. Maybe Kyra had run out of things to say, because <em>supposed to be friends</em> wasn't at all like they actually were.</p><p>Closed or open. Those were Kassandra's options. Stay closed, and stand in awkward silence or chat about small, safe subjects. Or she could open up, reveal a little of herself and hope that Kyra might follow. "I spend hours and hours a day talking to people. Sometimes I just want to sit with a book and a glass of bourbon."</p><p>Kyra nodded. "I get that. Sometimes it's like... if I have to listen to one more story about someone's day, I'm gonna go mad. Maybe I'd like someone to ask me about <em>my</em> day for once."</p><p>"People want a side of therapy with their latte."</p><p>"All for four bucks," she said. "But don't get me wrong. Customer service is my gig, and I like it well enough, it's just..."</p><p>"Too much of anything will kill you," Kassandra said agreeably.</p><p>Kyra eyed her over the edge of her glass. "What about you? If you didn't have to be here, what hot book would you be on a date with?"</p><p>To Kassandra's surprise, Kyra's voice held none of her usual mocking tone. She thought of the half-finished translation of Sappho she'd been working on. Kyra would probably roll her eyes and think it horrifically pretentious.</p><p>Kyra made Kassandra want to edit herself to impress her. "I've... been reading a lot of poetry lately." A bad answer, but it would give her time to wrack her brain for a good one.</p><p>"Oh? Like what?"</p><p>A commotion at the front of the room saved her. She looked up, saw a man posing dramatically within the frame of the greatroom's doorway, and smiled.</p><p>He strolled into the room: blonde and beautiful as a Greek god. He wasn't Aphrodite emerging from the waves, but a man named Alkibiades, known more for his wit and insatiable appetite for hedonism than his generosity. And if Kassandra was going to win this evening, she'd need to convince him to change his ways, if only for a little while.</p><p>Kyra's attention followed Kassandra's lead, and her eyes widened as she caught sight of him. "You want me to talk to <em>Alki Henriksen</em>? Climbing Magazine coverboy Alki Henriksen?"</p><p>Kassandra grinned. "Yeah."</p><p>"What am I supposed to do, just walk up to him and chat him up?"</p><p>"Of course not. I'll make an introduction." Or she would, if she knew Kyra's last name. <em>God damn it.</em> How had she overlooked that important detail?</p><p>"<em>You</em> know him?" Kyra was saying, between incredulous head shakes. "Of course you do."</p><p>She'd never seen Kyra this... flustered. It was <em>delightful</em>. "Don't tell me you're nervous."</p><p>"I'm not nervous," she said a little too quickly. She knocked back the rest of her drink and handed the empty glass to a passing waiter. "Well, what's the plan?"</p><p>First, the matter of Kyra's name. "Do you have a business card?"</p><p>Kyra shot her a suspicious look, but didn't argue, just reached into her back pocket and pulled out a stack of cards, sliding one off the top and handing it over.</p><p><em>Cliffhanger Coffee</em><br/>
<em>Kyra Delianos, Proprietor</em></p><p>No way. Kyra was a fellow Greek. Kassandra's mind flooded with questions. Did she speak Greek? How did she end up in Portland of all places? But now wasn't the time to ask. She shoved her curiosity into her pocket along with the card.</p><p>One last thing. She reached for Kyra's wrist, but stopped before making contact. "May I?"</p><p>"Okay..." Kyra's brows wrinkled. "Wait, why?" she asked, but she didn't pull away when Kassandra gently lifted her arm and began rolling up her shirtsleeve.</p><p>"You have more credibility than anyone else in this room. You own a business here, but you're also a part of this community," Kassandra said as she folded the fabric, her heart jumping every time her fingers brushed Kyra's skin. "And you very clearly don't look like someone who lives in Lake Oswego or West Linn." Stepford, cookie-cutter suburbs, filled with what passed for the wealthy in this part of the country. "It's worth emphasizing that you're a patron <em>and</em> constituent. To this particular audience, that carries weight." She finished the cuff, then moved on to the second sleeve.</p><p>Kyra looked skeptical but didn't say anything, just dropped her eyes to watch Kassandra's hands work the fabric of her shirt.</p><p>Kassandra smoothed the cuff just above Kyra's elbow, then ran a fingertip down the delicately shaded lines of the tattoo she'd revealed. "Besides, I think they're beautiful." And with that, she turned and stepped into the crowd.</p><p>Time to go fishing.</p><p>She cast her line easily enough, edging through the crowd that had gathered around Alkibiades and hooking him with a simple, "Walk with me?" They weren't exactly friends, but their history was such that it was enough to get him to join her without question.</p><p>Kyra, to her credit, hadn't moved from where Kassandra had left her, and she greeted their arrival with a casual ease. No sign of the nervous fluster of before.</p><p>"Now Alki," Kassandra said. "I know you get so bored talking to the same stale people at these things, and you know I can't tell a cam from a carabiner, so I brought you someone who does." She turned her gaze to Kyra. "Kyra, this is Alkibiades Henriksen. Alki, this is Kyra Delianos."</p><p>They shook hands. "Alki's short for <em>Alkibiades?</em>" she asked.</p><p>He grinned. "My mother had a flair for the dramatic."</p><p>"Kyra owns a coffee shop here in town," Kassandra said. "Cliffhanger, off of Belmont."</p><p>"Cliffhanger, you say? I like you already."</p><p>Kyra's eyes flicked over her and back. "I'm so glad Kassandra introduced us, because I owe you a thank you."</p><p>"Oh?"</p><p>"One of your ropes saved my life once."</p><p>Kassandra had chosen wisely. Kyra knew how to work a conversation, balancing her compliments with questions to get him to talk about himself and his company, and soon enough they were discussing things like the hand feel of synthetic fibers and dynamic versus static elongation and Kassandra took that as her cue to step back and get out of the way.</p><p>A tall, trim man in a sport jacket wandered past her elbow. "Merritt!" she said with a smile as she joined him. He owned the top tier men's and women's teams in this soccer-obsessed city. "How nice to see you. And how are your Timbers and Thorns..."</p><p>.oOo.</p><p>For the next half hour, Kassandra worked the room with a smile, a firm handshake, and a stack of business cards. She spoke with a tipsy neurologist from OHSU; a partner at some law firm with a comically long name she'd already forgotten; and a creative director at Wieden+Kennedy, who was all too happy to tell her how they'd picked the locations to animate in this year's anime-inspired advert for the Oregon tourism board.</p><p>Alki caught up to her as she finished her circuit of the room. "Kassandra! I really must thank you."</p><p>"For?"</p><p>"That introduction." He nodded over the crowd towards Kyra, who was off in a corner chatting with a few other guests. "She's exquisite. Like a wild tigress. Is she yours?"</p><p>"No. And she'd better not hear you say that or you'll end up wearing your balls for a necklace."</p><p>"So not yet."</p><p>"She can barely stand to be in the same room with me." What the fuck was she doing, letting that slip? There was something about him that disarmed her in the most inconvenient times.</p><p>His face lit up. "She's fair game, then?"</p><p><em>Careful, Kassandra</em>. She smiled at him while taking a slow and measured breath through her nose. "You'd have to ask her."</p><p>He dropped his mouth open and pressed his hand against his chest. "Tamping down your anger on <em>my</em> behalf? Are you trying to turn me on?" Then he laughed. "I never thought I'd see the mighty Kassandra sell herself short. Your tigress only has eyes for you, darling."</p><p>Kassandra found herself meeting Kyra's gaze across the room, but before she could nod, or smile, or do anything at all, Kyra looked away abruptly.</p><p>"I know carnal interest when I see it," he said sagely.</p><p>"It'll never happen."</p><p>"Why not? Did you kick her puppy or something? No, don't give me that look. I know you're no puppy kicker. Stealing her puppy for yourself would be more your style."</p><p>She ignored him. "Have you forgotten who I work for?"</p><p>His eyes widened as he connected the dots. "Oh dear, that <em>is</em> awkward." He paused, considering. "But look at you, still trying anyway. I admire your persistence in the face of adversity."</p><p>"You're speaking to me like you know me well."</p><p>"Oh, but it's true. Like recognizing like. It's what we do, you and I: float high above it all to keep everyone from coming too close. But sometimes one of those pesky mortals becomes too captivating to resist." He lifted a brow over clear grey eyes and fine, androgynous features. "Is she worth coming down from Olympus for?"</p><p>She found herself gritting her teeth. "You don't know a fucking thing about me."</p><p>"Come now, Kassandra. All this sexual tension's making you mean."</p><p>To hell with him and his money. She was <em>this</em> close to writing off the bet she'd made and telling him something she'd regret. But then she'd be wasting all of Kyra's efforts, and setting back the Library's fundraising as well. She took a breath, then laughed a laugh that said <em>Let's change the subject</em>. "We've been talking far too much about me," she said. "So, what magazine cover did you land this quarter?"</p><p>He was all too happy to tell her about his latest climbing adventure, to Peru this time, and then the conversation shifted as it always did to his ambitions for Vertus, the climbing gear company he'd founded.</p><p>"Then Kyra flat-out told me that Vertus had no reputation other than making 'bombproof' gear."</p><p>That did sound Kyra-esque.</p><p>"And then she said if I wanted to be Yvon Chouinard, I'd have to start acting like him."</p><p>Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, Inc., known for his activism and philanthropic efforts. "She's got a point, and she's not shy about stabbing people with it."</p><p>"Is she that candid with you?" he asked, smiling as Kassandra nodded. "Oh to have a front row seat in the theatre when that happens." He paused in thought. "Well. Between the two of you, I've had a wonderfully enlightening time this evening. But I'm sure you invited me here for a reason, Kassandra."</p><p>Her smile was small and knowing and there was no need for her to say more.</p><p>"I'd love to see my name at the top of the generosity leaderboard tonight," he said. "How many digits do you think it would take?"</p><p>"Six."</p><p>"For you darling, my wallet's wide, wide open."</p><p>.oOo.</p><p>A short while later, Kassandra was camped near the bar with a well-deserved victory drink in hand. No way she was losing this bet now. She couldn't wait to see the look on—</p><p>"So that was Alki Henriksen."</p><p>Kassandra turned and found Kyra walking up to join her. "It sure was."</p><p>"Did you get what you wanted?" she asked. "Scratch that, I can already tell. You're just reeking of smug satisfaction."</p><p>"Couldn't have done it without you."</p><p>"You're welcome." There was humor in her voice. "He said the two of you met at a Blazers game."</p><p>"We did, yeah."</p><p>"He also said you used to play, once." She gave Kassandra an appraising look. "Were you any good?"</p><p>Kassandra shrugged, her edges still raw from her earlier conversation with him. "I was all right."</p><p>A voice spoke from behind her. "'All right'? She was the best player in the country three years in a row."</p><p>Kassandra turned with a grin. "Hello, Roxana."</p><p>They embraced, briefly, as Kyra watched them with thinly-veiled curiosity. Roxana squeezed Kassandra's hands and stepped back to study her. "'course I'll never fucking forgive you for knocking us out of the Final Four."</p><p>Stanford versus Cal, that never-ending Bay Area rivalry. They'd split their regular season games that year and traded spots in the rankings back and forth until tournament time, and then everything came down to one game, win or go home, Stanford down one point and only two seconds left on the clock...</p><p>"You were guarding me so close it took a fucking circus shot to win that game," Kassandra said.</p><p>"Only you would have taken that shot — and only you could have made it."</p><p>They grinned at each other until Kassandra remembered her manners. "Roxana, this is Kyra. Kyra, Roxana." The two of them shook hands like two leopards meeting: an instant sizing up of the other, shoulders pulling back, spines straightening.</p><p>"Nice to meet you," Kyra said.</p><p>"The pleasure's mine." Roxana shifted her gaze between Kyra and Kassandra and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry I interrupted you two, but this was my first chance to say hello all evening."</p><p>"It's been what, five years since we've seen each other?"</p><p>"Near enough."</p><p>"How are the kids?"</p><p>"Kiana's on a good travel team and thinks she's going to play for Stanford. I don't know if I'm going to survive wearing your colors for four years."</p><p>"She's got plenty of time to change her mind."</p><p>Kyra lifted her empty glass. "Excuse me a moment," she said.</p><p>She cut through the crowd with a feline grace. Kassandra turned back to Roxana to find her smiling curiously. "A friend of yours?"</p><p>"Something like that."</p><p>"I'm not sure what I think of this new humble, evasive you."</p><p>Damn, it was good to see her. She'd always been beautiful, and over the years, she'd found contentment in a balance of family and career that had only deepened her beauty. Roxana wasn't the one who got away, but a vision of what might have been.</p><p>What might have been, if they'd been able to make a long-distance relationship work while Roxana was playing ball in Russia and trying to catch on to a WNBA roster. What might have been, if Kassandra had never gotten into the back of that towncar with her father, not knowing that she was about to be driven straight into a car wreck that would tear her and her life to shreds.</p><p>Roxana had tried — she'd tried harder than anyone else — but when Kassandra finally got out of the hospital, she was too far gone, too into her anger, too busy pushing everyone away while she tried to figure out what the hell she was going to do with her life now that basketball had been canceled from her equation.</p><p>"It's good to see you," she told Roxana. "And I'm going to win our bet, just so you know."</p><p>"Now <em>there's</em> the Kassandra I know and love."</p><p>"Nike still running you ragged?"</p><p>"I flew in from Boston last night. We're going all in with Eliud — if anyone's going to run a sub-two-hour marathon, it's going to be him."</p><p>"I can't think of anyone better to lead that charge," she said, smiling as Roxana wrestled with the compliment. "So what have I missed in five years?" she asked, but as she listened to Roxana tell her of what might have been, her eyes kept drifting to the crowd, looking for Kyra and the possibility of what might be.</p><p>.oOo.</p><p>It wasn't until the fundraiser was winding down that Kyra found her at the bar.</p><p>She'd left Kyra alone to mingle without distraction, and every time she'd caught a glimpse of Kyra in the crowd, she'd been deep in conversation with someone new. Good. Let her build that network.</p><p>"They're saying Alki pledged half a million tonight," she said without preamble. "No one else came close."</p><p>Kassandra smiled into the last of her drink and finished it off. "Mmmhmm."</p><p>"That's a lot of money," she said. Then she gave Kassandra a sideways glance and added, "Not for you, I'm sure, but..."</p><p>Any answer from Kassandra's mouth would be wrong. That topic had too many dangerous currents, was too perilous to their friendly façade. "Did you have a nice time tonight, at least?" Safer waters.</p><p>"I'm still here, aren't I?" Nearly ten o'clock. She'd overstayed her deadline by an hour.</p><p>"But not for long."</p><p>That confused her, but then she followed Kassandra's eyes to the area behind bar, where the bartenders were moving racks of glassware and wiping down the bartop, cleaning up after the fundraiser and getting ready to reopen for the bar's private clientele.</p><p>They got the hint, and headed for the exit.</p><p>"This carriage is about to turn back into a pumpkin. Or a speakeasy," Kyra said. Then she gave herself a self-deprecating snort. "That was a terrible metaphor. It's not even close to midnight."</p><p>On the sidewalk outside, they stopped and looked at each other, both trying to figure out something to say.</p><p>Kyra beat her to it. "I did have a really nice time," she said, and there was an ember of warmth to her that hadn't been there before.</p><p>Kassandra wanted more of it. "Would you like to grab a—"</p><p>"Kassandra! You weren't going to leave without gloating over your victory, were you?"</p><p><em>Fuck.</em> She turned to Roxana in time to be enveloped in a bear hug. "Actually, I <em>was</em>—"</p><p>"Alki Henriksen opening his wallet. Unbelievable. I thought I had you beat for sure after I got Tim and Merritt to sign on."</p><p>At the edge of her vision, she could see Kyra's features freeze over. <em>Fuckfuckfuck.</em></p><p>Roxana smiled at her fondly. "You should join me on the Library board, you know. We could use you."</p><p>It took Kassandra a moment to regain her wits. "I'll think about it."</p><p>"Don't think too long to say yes." She checked her phone. "There's my Uber, I've got to run. Lunch sometime? Soon."</p><p>"Yes, for sure."</p><p>Then Roxana disappeared into the back of her ride. She'd left Kassandra on the sidewalk and taken all the air on the street with her.</p><p>Kassandra turned slowly. "Kyra, I—"</p><p>"You used me."</p><p>"To raise more money than I could have on my own."</p><p>"So you could win a bet. That's all this was to you. Another chance for you to lift some trophy in your own mind," she said, her voice as sharp as a blade. Then she turned on her heel and stalked off.</p><p>"Where are you going?"</p><p>She didn't stop, didn't turn around. "On a walk."</p><p>"At this time of night?"</p><p>She ignored the question, putting more and more distance between them.</p><p>"Fuck," Kassandra muttered, then hurried in pursuit, falling into step beside Kyra, close enough to be caught in the splash zone of Kyra's seething anger.</p><p>Kyra kept her eyes straight ahead. "What are you doing?"</p><p>"Walking with you."</p><p>"I didn't ask you to."</p><p>"I don't care," Kassandra said. "You want to go somewhere? I'll see you there safely. You want to walk around, aimlessly? We'll walk around, aim—"</p><p>Kyra took two quick steps and pulled ahead, then whirled around and stopped square in Kassandra's path, somehow filling the entire sidewalk with her immovable presence. "Stop it," she said, raising both hands in front of her. "Just... stop." Her eyes searched Kassandra's face. "Why won't you leave me alone?"</p><p>Sudden pain was something Kassandra knew. A lowered shoulder bashing into her chest hard enough to crack ribs. A highside flinging her from her dirtbike onto the rocks. And now she had another entry for the list: a few simple words in the shape of a question. "If that's what you want, say it, and you won't see me again."</p><p>Kyra stared at her, and Kassandra felt herself standing up straighter, her spine and ribs tightening as if pulled by a great winch; her body closing the gates and readying the defenses.</p><p>Then Kyra laughed, the sound as thin and brittle as the shards from a broken window, and just as dangerously sharp. "I want a fucking drink."</p><p>She walked away, and Kassandra followed helplessly after her. One block up, another block over, and then Kyra headed straight for a hole in the wall with the discouraging name of "Scooter McQuades" printed on a boxy sign that flickered fluorescently into the night.</p><p>If the Oxford English Dictionary had an entry for "dive bar," it couldn't do any better than a description of this place: a dimly lit snapshot of the early nineties, where the music was abrasive and loud, and decades of grime stained the walls.</p><p>The woman behind the bar looked over at them and smiled. "Kyra! I'll be damned."</p><p>It was interesting, how quickly Kyra could relax in the right circumstances. Like a light switch flipping.</p><p>"Ann! I didn't think you'd be working tonight." She smiled apologetically. "It's been too long, I know."</p><p>"You're busy. I'm busy. It's all good." The bartender was older, maybe in her fifties, dark hair streaked with grey and faded tattoos on her forearms. Cotton-candy pinks and blues. But her movements behind the bar were as clean and purposeful as a scalpel and her eyes were lively with humor. She quirked an eyebrow just long enough to give Kassandra an appraising gaze, then turned back to Kyra.</p><p>"What are ya hankerin' for, love?"</p><p>"PBR and tots."</p><p>Then it was Kassandra's turn. "What'll it be for you?"</p><p>Kyra interrupted before she could open her mouth. "She'll have a PBR, too."</p><p>"How do you like them tots?"</p><p>"Cajun."</p><p>"Won't take but a minute, I promise." She dismissed them with a wave of her hand. "Well, don't just stand there, have a seat, both of you. Booth, bar, pick your poison."</p><p>Kyra chose a booth near the windows. The cracked vinyl seats had once been emerald green, but time had faded them to a dull moss, and someone had patched the worst of the wear with strips of black tape. At least the top of the table seemed clean.</p><p>Kyra leaned back against the vinyl and stared at her.</p><p>Kassandra had been grilled by hostile lawyers in the courtroom and shouted at by C-level blowhards in the boardroom, but nothing compared to the withering scrutiny she was getting in this dive bar — and Kyra hadn't even said a fucking word.</p><p>The drinks came, along with a steaming basket of tater tots, and in moments the booth smelled of beer and fried potatoes. Kyra tossed a soggy cardboard coaster emblazoned with "Kilkenny" in front of her, then placed a pint of PBR upon it.</p><p>"Drink it."</p><p>She did. It was better than she thought. Better than she remembered, during those beer-soaked college days when she played hard and partied harder, a different sorority girl in her bed every night.</p><p>Kyra sipped her own beer and nodded at the bottles of Jameson lined up at the end of the bar. "I <em>want</em> that bottle of whiskey. But I know I shouldn't have it." She popped a tater tot into her mouth, chewed thoughtfully. Reached across the table for the bottle of ketchup. Shook it forcefully and tapped out a puddle onto a paper-lined corner of the basket.</p><p>Kassandra couldn't remember the last time she'd had a tater tot. College, maybe? She picked one out and ate it. Spicy heat. Paprika and cayenne and plenty of MSG, probably, the flavors floating on a raft of grease and fluffy potato. It was good, and as comforting as a warm blanket.</p><p>She glanced at the ketchup bottle. Not Heinz, something local. Organic, artisanal ketchup in a dive bar, reminding her that she was still in Portland after all.</p><p>Ann bustled by with a tray full of pints destined for another table.</p><p>Kyra nodded in her direction. "She's owned this place something like twenty-five years," she said. "That's what I want. I want my shop to last." She pushed the corner of her beer coaster with a fingertip. "But I don't think that's going to happen."</p><p>She moved her finger in a slow arc, spinning the coaster. Her glass spun with it, leaving a wet trail behind on the tabletop.</p><p>"I don't have a safety net, Kassandra. I don't have any family left, and my money's tied up in my shop. If I fuck up, it's all on me." Her hand stilled. "And I think about that every single time I have to make a decision about the shop or about money. It's always there in the back of my mind. Always."</p><p>She pushed the coaster hard enough for the beer in the glass to slosh from side to side.</p><p>"I'm not telling you this because I want your pity. I chose this business. It's just... I have a lot to lose, but my everything wouldn't even be a blip on your radar."</p><p>"I understand."</p><p>Her smile was patient. "No you don't, but that's okay."</p><p>She tipped a tater tot into the pool of ketchup. Fished it out. Ate it.</p><p>"My lease is up this fall, and judging by that look on your face, you know exactly what that means for me. I'll get to play the negotiation game with my landlord, trying to get to a place where the rent increase won't crush me."</p><p>Kassandra thought of the shiny new furniture store next door to the coffee shop. The deck was stacked against Kyra; all that outside money pouring into the neighborhood was there for one purpose: to raise rents.</p><p>"So I'm still thinking about your offer, because I'd be a fool not to."</p><p>"There's no universe in which I'd ever mistake you for a fool."</p><p>Silence, then. Maybe she'd killed the conversation. Maybe Kyra just wanted to sit in peace and drink her beer and eat some tater tots, and forget for a moment that she was the only one holding up the weight of her world.</p><p>The world revolved around money. Kassandra saw the windows of the coffee shop going dark, the bar and chairs and tables vanishing, a FOR LEASE sign pasted up against the glass. Outside money. Kyra's problem was the kind of problem she could solve.</p><p>One tater tot left. Kyra's brow arched in silent question, and Kassandra shook her head in a <em>take it</em> motion.</p><p>Kassandra finished her beer, and watched the remnants of foam slide down the walls of the glass. After a while, she cleared her throat, looked at Kyra, and said, "So, how was your day?"</p><p>Kyra blinked, but then a slow smile spread across her lips. "It was interesting," she said. "I had the day off, so I climbed all morning and spent the afternoon figuring out what the hell I was going to wear tonight." Then she laughed, more from disbelief than humor. "And then I go to this fundraiser with no idea what to expect, and end up talking to Alki fucking Henriksen, the god of climbing. He wants to meet about doing a collab with my shop. I never would have dreamed of that being a possibility. Never. Though I'm sure he's just trying to get in my pants."</p><p>"He wants both. Business and pleasure." Like recognizing like.</p><p>"It's tempting; he <em>is</em> a beautiful man."</p><p>They'd make a striking couple. The thought of it was vertiginous. She kept her face blank and her mouth shut as she studied the worn formica next to her glass.</p><p>"But I already have enough of a distraction on my plate."</p><p>Kassandra nodded. "I know." Everything kept circling back to the same place.</p><p>Silence for several seconds, then Kyra spoke again. "I wish our circumstances were different."</p><p>That made Kassandra look up. "So do I."</p><p>"Do you? Would you even notice me if I was some rando on the street, I wonder." Then she waved one hand dismissively while tipping back her head to drain her beer with the other. The glass hit the table with a bang, and she slid it aside. "No, don't answer that. I've got to open the shop early tomorrow."</p><p>Kassandra grabbed the check before Kyra's glass came to a stop. She dropped cash on the table, then picked up the pen and receipt and wrote her number at the bottom.</p><p>"What's this?" Kyra said as Kassandra pushed it in front of her.</p><p>"My phone number, if you ever need it. Or if your opinion about our circumstances ever changes."</p><p>For a moment, she thought Kyra might not take it. But Kyra did, her fingers gracefully folding the paper before slipping it into her front pocket. And then they were standing, and Kyra was saying goodbye to Ann, and they were walking outside to stand face-to-face on the sidewalk. Déjà vu.</p><p>They stared at each other.</p><p>In the backwash of fluorescent light, Kyra's eyes were sheened with black opal. "I was kinda hoping I'd have a horrible time tonight," she said, and she reached out and tucked a stray lock of Kassandra's hair back behind her ear, and then her fingers drifted down to the lapel of Kassandra's jacket, and over to the knot on Kassandra's neckerchief, and she gave it a gentle tug, and smoothed its tails so they hung neatly. "I really was."</p><p>She stepped back, and her eyes said something in a language Kassandra hadn't yet learned how to read.</p><p>"Will you text me?" Kassandra asked.</p><p>"I don't know." Her gaze moved past Kassandra's shoulder. "Oh, I want that taxi."</p><p>Three long strides and Kassandra was in the street, flagging it down, opening the door.</p><p>"Thanks for coming with me tonight," she said as Kyra settled into the back seat.</p><p>"Wait, how are you getting home?"</p><p>"Walking. It's not far." Then she closed the door, flashed a smirk and a wave as Kyra rolled her eyes and the taxi pulled away.</p><p>
  
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A huge thank you to T, for all the insider-y barista information.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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